Bubbling Under, Revisited
by Supernoodle
Summary: Icy rivers, Demons and Winchesters are a bad mix. All is not what it seems when Dean ends up in hospital after a hunt goes bad. Set mid- season two. Hurt!Dean. This is a heavily edited version of the original "Bubbling Under" which has now been deleted!
1. Chapter 1

**_Okay guys. This is technically the same story that was first posted on this site a year and a half ago, but 'Bubbling Under' was my first real full-length Supernatural fanfic, and as such was very rough around the edges - basically it made me cringe everytime I looked at it._**

**_So in between writing my other fics I have slightly re-jigged this fic and have given it a damn good editing. I have resisted the urge to completely re-write it, so there are still some things that aren't that great, but I'm much happier with this new version._**

**_I hope I have improved as a writer since writing this fic, so please be kind when reading and remember that this was written when I had only seen a few episodes of Supernatural, so if you notice a few mistakes with the characters or anything that isn't really cannon, you'll just have to let it slide._**

**_When I have posted all 12 new chapters I will be removing the original version of this story._**

_**So hope you enjoy this again, and thanks for reading.**_

_**TTFN, Supernoodle x**_

_**24th Nov 08**_

* * *

**Bubbling Under, Revisited.**

**By Supernoodle**

**Chapter 1**

**-o-**

The icy water bit into his skin causing Dean Winchester to gasp in shock, drawing the murky river water deep into his lungs. The pain was like nothing he'd ever felt before. He'd once read somewhere that drowning was meant to be a peaceful way to go, but he felt anything but peaceful right now. In fact, that was the last word he would use to describe it.

"Dean!" Sam yelled frantically, wading in to the freezing water. The river was covered with a thin layer of ice and snow around the banks and Sam had to kick through to make his way to his brother.

It had all seemed so easy. They had been on the trail of the Demon for a couple of days as it went from one small town to another – Ash had called and given them the heads up and Sam had convinced Dean that they should check it out – certain that it was looking for another of the "Special Children." Kids like Sam – Kids who had received a childhood visit from the Yellow-Eyed-Demon.

They had caught up with it just outside of Ely, Minnesota and that's when everything had turned bad. As Dean frequently lamented; nothing good ever happened in Minnesota. They had followed it as it drove down one of the forest roads and came to the bridge, where it got out of the car and ran towards the river. Dean had brought the Impala to a screeching halt then took off after the thing; gun in hand. Only that's when things went bad, like things always had a habit of doing. Sam had watched in horror as the rickety old wooden bridge, which looked like it hadn't been used for a century or two, collapsed under Dean's weight and both he and the Demon plunged into the fast flowing river below. All part of the plan, no doubt. Some Demons didn't seem to like to kill you outright themselves, but they would happily tempt you to your death and Dean had taken the bait, hook, line and sinker.

"Dean?" Sam yelled again as he frantically waded his way through the river weeds and chunks of ice, ignoring the cast on his wrist that he had spent the last three weeks trying to keep dry. The water was so cold he could barely feel his legs and he had to force himself to go deeper into the middle of the river where Dean and the Demon had fallen in, gasping as the cold gnawed into him.

Under the water, Dean frantically clawed at the Demon's face – it was using the body of a pretty young dark-haired girl - what else? Maybe it was a deliberate attempt to lure Dean by using a body that was just his type, but this wasn't going to stop him from trying his hardest to kill it and he grabbed the thing by the throat as his lungs screamed for air. But no matter how hard he fought, he couldn't break free of its death grip. The Demon held him under, its face peering down at him, smiling. It seemed like hours, but he had only been under the water for less than twenty seconds and as his body began to go into shock and his brain began to shut down, he remembered the gun. Somehow he was still holding the Glock in his left hand, despite being so cold he could barely feel it, but it was okay, his hands were well trained - they knew what to do with guns. After all these years on the job Dean didn't need conscious though to be able to use a weapon.

**-o-**

Sam flinched unconsciously as the sound of gunshot broke the silence of the cold winter afternoon. Three shots in all - he saw one of them smash through the ice, then a moment later the Demon rose from the river as curling black smoke, soaring high above him before disappearing back into the ground with an ear-splitting screech. Sam watched the thing disappear then took a few steps further into the water, ready to help Dean out when he surfaced, but there was no sign of his brother.

"Dean?" he yelled, teeth chattering madly. It was so cold it hurt but he took another few steps into the river anyway. Dean had been under the water a long time now, well over a minute and a horrible dread was balling in the pit of Sam's stomach.

_Come on… Come up, Dean… Please come up…_

Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, he saw something break the surface and throwing himself fully into the water, Sam struggled to the middle of the river. It seemed to take an eternity, the cold sapped his strength with every second that went by, but he eventually reached his brother and grabbing hold of him by his jacket, Sam pulled Dean face-up and dragged him towards the riverbank. His hands were so cold and numb that he kept losing his grip but eventually he made it to the side and using the last ounce of strength he had in his body, Sam dragged Dean's wet, dead weight out of the river and back onto dry land.

"Dean... _Dean_?" He yelled, wiping the water and river weeds from his brother's face, shaking him roughly. "Bro, come on… Don't do this to me. Wake up!" But Dean's face was grey, lips completely blue, eyes half-open – unseeing and glassy.

Sam bent over and put his ear to his brother's face, desperate to hear breath being drawn into his lungs, but there was nothing. Dean wasn't breathing. Dean was dead.

"No. Dean, _Please_… " he gasped through chattering teeth as tears began to blur his vision. Shock and borderline hypothermia beginning to rob him of the ability to think straight. All he could do was stare at his brother's dead face and he would have stayed like that until the cold took him down if he hadn't suddenly heard a voice speak quietly in his ear.

_Help him!_

Sam spun around. The words had been spoken by someone just over his shoulder but there was no-one around. He turned back to look at Dean, wiping the tears from his eyes with a badly shaking hand, then the voice came again, like an echo from his past.

_Save him, Sam. Godammit! _

And this time it the command was loud enough to jump start him to action - breaking the hypothermic daze that he'd begun to slip into.

John Winchester had taught his sons many skills over the years – skills that he himself had learned during his time in the Marine Corps. When most kids were learning to ride their first bikes, the Winchester boys were learning hand-to-hand combat, hand-to-knife combat, gunmanship, bow hunting - Sam and Dean could both drive as soon as their feet could reach the pedals, could both shoot as soon as their hands were strong enough to pull the trigger. John had taught them everything they might need to survive the life of a hunter but one of the most important skills he had taught them was first aid. Both Sam and Dean knew how to stem blood flow, dress and stitch wounds, remove bullets and most importantly, both knew how to perform CPR.

Leaning over his brother, Sam tilted Dean's head back and pinching his nose closed, he placed his lips over his brother's and blew a desperately needed breath deep into Dean's waterlogged lungs, quickly followed by another and then another.

"Don't do this, Dean. _Please!"_ Sam yelled, pulling away, watching his brother's face intently for any sign of life - But there was nothing. Dean remained unresponsive and Sam pressed his fingers to the cold skin of his throat, feeling for a pulse and finding nothing. Then interlacing his fingers, Sam placed them over Dean's breastbone and began CPR.

He wasn't going to let his brother die.

Not like this.

**-o-**

The Impala sped down the main road of Buttfuck, Minnesota or whatever the town was called. Sam knew the hospital was around here somewhere, they had called in a day or so ago, looking for clues when hunting down the Demon. Why were there no road signs? It wasn't like anyone would ever need to find a hospital in a hurry, was it?

After several minutes on the riverbank, Sam had managed to get Dean breathing again. Mashing his sodden wrist cast to pieces, and maybe a few of Dean's ribs, he thought grimly, as he pounded on his brother's chest until he took his first desperate, gasping breaths and threw up about a gallon of river water. Then somehow, Sam had managed to gather the last of his remaining strength and get Dean into the back of the car where he now lay, barely conscious and shivering violently, with his lungs rattling noisily every time he took a breath. He sounded terrible, but at least he was breathing.

"Come on, Dean. Stay with me!" Sam yelled, glancing worriedly in the rear view mirror. The only time Dean would ever tolerate riding in the back seat of his beloved car was when he was unconscious or was so badly hurt he couldn't sit up straight, and that had happened more times than Sam would like to remember. They had a hard life, there was no denying that, and it was taking its toll on both of them - Dean especially. It had only been a few weeks ago when he had let his little brother in, just for a moment, but that moment had been enough for Sam to see how much Dean was hurting, to see how much their Dad's death had affected him.

Sam had been attacked by a girl carrying some sort of Demon Virus - they thought he'd been infected, thought he'd turn into some sort of Demon and kill everyone around him like the rest of the town's inhabitants, but instead of leaving to safety as Sam had begged him to, Dean had stayed.

"_It's over for me… It doesn't have to be for you!" Sam had insisted tearfully. "You can keep going!" _

"_Who says I want to?" Dean had replied, looking at him then with an expression Sam had never seen in his eyes before – a mixture of exhaustion, defeat, regret – it had stopped Sam in his tracks._

"_I'm tired, Sam." Dean had continued, smiling at him with that dazzling, megawatt smile of his that never quite reached his eyes anymore and shrugged._

"_I'm tired of this life, this job – this weight on my shoulders, man. I'm tired of it."_

Sam knew Dean missed their Dad. He did too, of course, but not like his brother. He'd never been as close to their Dad as Dean had. Sam and John had spent most of their lives butting heads over one trivial thing or another, but it was different with his brother. John had been more than just a Father to Dean; he had been his idol, his drill Sergeant and his anchor. John said jump and all his life, Dean had jumped. But now John was gone and his brother seemed kind of lost.

Sam suspected that Dean was suffering more than he would ever let on and it worried him deeply.

**-o-**

It was nearly ten more minutes before Sam found the hospital and leaving Dean in the Impala outside the foyer, he burst groggily through the doors screaming for help until a flurry of medical staff followed him out to the car. He barely had the strength to hold himself upright, let alone drag his brother out of the car.

"What happened?" One of the doctors asked him, as they gently slid Dean out of the backseat and on to a gurney.

Sam barely registered that someone was speaking to him and the doctor had to ask him again before he replied. The adrenalin that had been shooting round his system since they caught up with the Demon had all but worn off and he realised that he was just about on his own last legs as he followed his brother into the hospital.

"Straight into trauma room one." The doctor ordered, and Sam tried to follow his brother into the room but a nurse stopped him.

"You can't go in there." She said firmly, and tried to steer Sam away towards one of the chairs in the corridor.

"But he's my b-brother!" Sam replied, shrugging off her hand. He could see through the window in the door as they began to cut Dean's sodden clothes off and hook him up to half a dozen different monitors.

The nurse took Sam's arm and this time she was more forceful in her efforts to get him away from the room and a moment later, Sam found himself sitting down anyway. He was beyond cold, not really even shivering anymore and although he desperately wanted to be in the room with Dean, now he was sitting, he honestly didn't think he had the strength to get back to his feet.

"Are you okay, Honey? Are you hurt?" The nurse asked him, wrapping a warm blanket around his shoulders.

Sam shook his head, looking up at her. "I'm j-just c-cold."

"I bet you are. How about we get those wet clothes off and have someone look at your wrist? You've made a fine mess of that cast, haven't you?"

Sam frowned, not quite following what she was saying to him. He was so tired and nothing was really making much sense any more. All he wanted to do was be with Dean, make sure he was okay but he just couldn't muster the strength to get up. "He was under the w-water for a couple of minutes, I c-couldn't reach him. He wasn't breathing when I got him out… I think I b-broke his ribs when I did CPR."

The nurse nodded and gave him a sympathetic smile. "You did good, Honey. You got him here breathing. That's always a good start. Now can you tell me your names?"

Sam nodded, "I'm Sam - That's m-my brother Dean."

Normally they came up with fake names, but Sam could barely think straight, let alone come up with some amusing pseudonym. Beside, it was Dean who usually thought of their alias's – in the last two weeks alone they had been reporters John Bonham and John Paul Jones, FBI agents Simmons and Stanley and Doctors Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay. If Sam ever got to choose the names, he usually went for something a little more highbrow, but that usually resulted in Dean getting pissed off. For some reason that Sam would never understand, Dean seemed to get a weird kick from signing a credit card receipt in the name of D. Hasslehoff. A fake ID in the name of E. Schrodinger or Carlos Sagan didn't quite hold the same appeal for Dean as one in the name of Santos. L. Helper did.

The nurse smiled down at Sam. "Okay Sweetheart. Now your brother is in good hands. Dr Miller is the best doctor we have and she's going to take good care of your brother, but we need to get you fixed up too." And reaching down, she took hold of his ruined plaster cast.

Sam winced in pain, although the fracture wasn't a particularly bad one, it was far from healed and now he was warming up slightly some of the feeling had returned.

"Don't!" He snapped, pulling away from the woman and clutching his injured wrist to his body. She was smiling a patient smile, trying to comfort him, but Sam didn't care. All he wanted to do was make sure Dean was okay then fall down somewhere and sleep for a week.

"Please tell me he's going to be okay…" He gasped, voice breaking as tears filled his eyes. "I can't lose him. He's all I have left."

**-o-**

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**-o-**

"_Dean?"_ A voice whispered in the darkness. _"Dean, you wake up now!"_

Dean frowned. He knew that voice. It was so achingly familiar, but so faint - It sounded a million miles away and he could barely make out the words. Then just as he thought he had it, it was replaced by a much louder voice. Someone was shouting at him.

"Dean? I need you to calm down and open your eyes now! Come on, handsome. Open those pretty eyes for me…"

Dean frowned and cracked open his eyes. His body instinctively reacting to shouted commands. There was a bright light and someone was looking down at him - a pretty, blond chick that he didn't recognise.

"Get _off_ me..." Dean murmured irritably. It felt like someone was sitting on his chest, making it almost impossible to breath and he tried to raise his arms, to push them off, but someone was holding him down. And to top all that, he was so freakin' cold. He closed his eyes again, the light was too bright and it hurt his head and he tried to retreat back into the cold, silent darkness.

_"That's it, Dean... Come on - wake up now! You're in the hospital." _

Dean frowned again. _Hospital?_ What the hell were they doing in a hospital?

"Sammy?" He whispered, barely hearing his own voice. They had to finish the hunt, had to kill the Demon before anyone else go hurt. They didn't have time for this.

**-o-**

Sam watched his brother fight everyone that was trying to help him from the edge of the trauma room, chewing his fingernails down to the quick with worry. Even half-dead, Dean didn't stop fighting.

The nurse who had made him wait outside the trauma room had given him a warm blanket and a hot drink and he was feeling almost human again. He was still exhausted but the fogginess that had been creeping into his brain since dragging Dean out of the icy river was thankfully fading.

The doctor gestured for him to come over and Sam hesitantly walked forward and stood beside the exam table. He could barely bring himself to look at the state Dean was in, yet could hardly tear his eyes off him. He looked like death warmed up and in the stark light of the trauma room all the old scars from lifetime's worth of hunting injuries stood out on his brother's body like landmarks on the map of a long hard journey.

"Come and talk to him." The doctor said gently, looking over at Sam. She was young, about Dean's age, and had a kind, concerned face, and ushering him closer she said, "Try to keep him calm - reassure him, okay? If he doesn't settlle down we're going to have to restrain him to stop him hurting himself."

Dean was shivering, skin still impossibly pale, the blue tinge still colouring his lips. He was clearly in pain and his breath was coming in shallow, rattling gasps. Looking down to his brother's bare chest, Sam noticed the dark bruising across Dean's ribs and nausea rolled in the pit of his stomach.

"Did I hurt him? Did break my brother's ribs?" He asked the doctor who was busy inserting huge needles into the veins in each of Dean's arms as nurses held him down on either side. She nodded in reply, drawing vials of blood that would be soon tested for oxygen and carbon dioxide and other blood gasses while other nurses bustled around.

"I think so, but it happens, it doesn't matter." The doctor told him. "The important thing was to get him breathing again. You did well. CPR isn't as simple as it is in the movies. A lot of near drowning victims don't even make it into the ER."

Strangely, Sam didn't find this comforting and reaching out tentatively, he touched Dean's arm. "Hey, Dude. It's me. You're in the hospital, you need to calm down, okay?"

**-o-**

Dean heard his brother's voice and almost as if Sam's touch flicked a switch inside his head, everything that had happened came flooding back to him in glorious Technicolor. The Demon, the bridge, the river...

"Sammy?" he yelled as he shook himself free of the hands that held him down and tearing the oxygen mask from his face, he frantically tried to sit up to see where his brother was. Panic was spiking through him, it felt like he was still under the water, felt like he was still drowning and the immense crushing pain that flared across his chest made him cry out in agony.

The pretty blonde appeared above him again and she reached down and held his face in her hands, trying to keep him still as he gasped desperately for breath that wouldn't come.

_Dammit, Sammy… Help me out here?…_

"Don't panic, Dean. Your brother is here. Sam is right here." The girl told him and a moment later Sam's face appeared above him as well and would have sworn his brother was crying.

"I c-can't breath." Dean managed to get out, the effort of speaking leaving his lungs burning with pain. Blinking to try to clear his eyes of the dark spots that were crowding the corners of his vision, he felt hot tears slip down the sides of his cheeks. "What's w-wrong with m-me?" He gasped.

"_Is he okay? What's happening?"_ He heard Sam ask and Dean felt his brother's hand clutching his shoulder tightly.

_That's what I'd like to know too, Sammy._ He thought to himself. It had been a long time since he'd felt this bad… Felt this _wrong._ This was like being the worst kind of stoned – the whitey from hell – only one hundred times worse.

"He's tachycardic. Temp ninety-three degrees." A voice said from beside his head and suddenly something began to burn fiercely as it shot up through the veins in his left arm.

"_Sonofabitch…"_ He gasped, trying to see what the person who owned the voice was doing to him to cause so much pain, but as he moved, a wave of dizziness swept through him, making the room spin away for a moment and he closed his eyes until it passed. When he opened them again, the pretty blonde was peering down at him again.

"Dean, I need you to listen to me now. When you fell into the water you aspirated river water into your lungs and it's irritating them, making them swell up with fluid. It's a bit like drowning all over again and we need to stop that happening. You feel dizzy because your heart isn't beating regularly. So what I'm going to do is give you a sedative to make you sleep and then put a tube down your throat to help you breath. You won't feel anything, I promise."

Dean shook his head, he still remembered being on a ventilator after the crash, still remembered waking up with tube stuffed down his throat. It had been one of the most unpleasant experiences of his life and it wasn't something he wanted to repeat any time soon.

"No… Sammy, don't let em… Don't…" Dean murmured as every instinct told him to fight, but his body wouldn't co-operate, and before he could utter another word of protest, the darkness flooded up around him once more as the doctor pushed the drugs into his veins and sent him into oblivion.

**-o-**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**-o-**

Sam couldn't watch the doctor intubate his brother.

He had seen it happen before, it brought back terrible memories and he stumbled out of the Trauma room and leaned against the wall, fighting back the tears that threatened to escape from his eyes. He was tired of crying, tired of the death that constantly surrounded them, and most of all, he was tired of seeing Dean hurt time and time again. And what was it all for anyway? - A fight that was never ever going to be won, no matter how hard they fought, no matter how much they lost along the way.

When the truck had hit the Impala and Dean had come within a hair's breath of dying, Sam thought he might just curl up and die with him. The thought of living this life without his brother was just too awful to contemplate. And then Dad… Their Father had sacrificed himself to save Dean's life and he didn't know how to feel about any of it. Fear - Anger - Guilt - Resentment… It had all become so blurred but yet again it was Dean who had taken the brunt of the damage.

Time after time Dean had put himself in harm's way to save his little brother, he had flat out told Sam that he would lay down his life for him. Something that made Sam's heart both swell with absolute love for his brother and at the same time freeze with terror. He knew these were no idle words. Dean would jump in front of a bullet for him without a moment's hesitation - but was he worth it? They still didn't know what the Yellow-Eyed-Demon wanted with him? For all they knew, Sam could be as evil as the things they hunted and a part of him feared that Dean was losing his own humanity along the way too.

On their last hunt Sam had called Dean a monster, no better than the things they hunted. Seeing the hurt in Dean's eyes, he had immediately regretted his words, but both of them knew that there was some truth to what Sam had said.

Dean was killer. He was also a liar, a fraudster and a thief - everything that a good hunter needed to be. Given the choice, Sam knew Dean would prefer not to be any of those things, but it didn't stop him being damn good at what he did. Dean had been raised to hate the evil things that lurked in shadows, and hate them he did. Seeing the cold ferocity of his brother in action sometime was a little scary to say the least – And Sam knew that Dean scared himself sometimes.

Lost in his thoughts, Sam didn't notice one of the nurses standing opposite him. She was looking at him with a mixture of sympathy and motherly concern. A look Sam was used to seeing. He seemed to bring out these feelings in women of a certain age. Something on his face just seemed to scream _Poor motherless waif_.

"You ok there, Sweetheart?" She asked him. Coming over and bending down so she could place a hand on his shoulder.

Sam looked up at her, wiping away the tears with his good hand and shrugged. He honestly didn't know the answer to that one.

"Your brother will be okay. He's young and fit and looks like he's been a few scrapes before. The doctor knows what she's doing." The nurse told him.

Sam snorted. A few scrapes? That was the understatement of the century.

"We need to get you fixed up too, though." The nurse continued. "We don't want you getting pneumonia and ending up in a bed next to your brother, do we now?"

"I'm okay." Sam muttered, but it was a lie and they both knew it. Sam wasn't good at hiding how he felt… His face was too open. He couldn't guard his emotions; bury his feelings like Dean could - Never had been able to. He was pretty much an open book.

The nurse frowned at him. "And I'm Florence Nightingale. Now get up and get your butt into that room over there and we'll see if we can get you warmed up a bit. Then I'll have someone come and look at that wrist of yours."

Sam smiled in spite of himself. "Nice bedside manner."

"Honey, they don't pay me enough to be nice to skinny white boys like you, and besides, you're not in bed yet. You wait and see, I'll be nice as pie to your brother there when he wakes up. Handsome young thing like him. He'll be eating out of my hand in no time."

Sam sighed and shook his head. "You don't know my brother. He hates hospitals. He's gonna do nothing but bitch and moan when he wakes up… _If he wakes up_…" Sam muttered, letting the nurse help him to his feet and off towards the exam room.

"Shush with your fretting now, Sweetheart." The nurse told him gently. "Dr Miller might be young but she's good. Your brother will be right as rain before you know it."

**-o-**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 **

**-o-**

Bright sunlight was streaming through the blinds when the youngest Winchester finally woke up. He was in a warm, comfortable bed - something he'd not been in for longer than he'd like to remember, and it took Sam a while to remember where he was and why he was there.

_Dean..._

Flinging back the blankets, Sam jumped out of the bed and looked frantically around for his clothes but they were nowhere to be seen. There was a robe on the chair next to his bed and he quickly pulled it on over his flimsy hospital gown, barely noticing the brand new cast on his wrist. How could he have slept the whole night? Anything could have happened. What if Dean had woken up and he hadn't been there? What if Dean wasn't going to wake up at all?

Dean was a hard-ass, but Sam knew his brother had been scared yesterday, Sam had seen it in his eyes when the doctor had told him what she was going to do: knock him out and put another damn tube down his throat.

It was like some terrible déjà vu.

The last time Dean had been in hospital, they had lost their Dad. It was still a fresh, raw wound on both of their hearts, and it had just been ripped wide open again. Sam wondered sometimes if Dean's heart would ever heal.

Sam was about to leave to find out where they had taken his brother when the nurse from yesterday came into his room, carrying a tray of cereal and toast. She looked Sam up and down and shook her head. "Bought you some breakfast, Honey. Thought you could do with some food. You look like you haven't eaten for a while. Why don't you eat it before you go charging half-cocked down the corridor?"

Sam looked at her. "Is Dean okay? My brother? Is he alright?"

From her badge, Sam saw that her name was Sister Cook, and she put the food down on the table at the end of the bed then turned to look at him again.

"He had a comfortable night. He's doing pretty well now on the ventilator. Blood pressure is up, his heart rate is stabilizing - the oxygen levels in his blood are much better. Dr Miller thinks he might be okay to come off the ventilator today, but she'll go through all this with you later… After you've eaten and cleaned up a bit. You look like hell warmed over, Sweetheart."

Sam sat back down on the bed, knowing the nurse was right. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a proper meal… A day ago?... Two days? His stomach growled loudly at the smell of the food, which he realised, was pretty pitiful considering it was just cornflakes a couple of pieces of toast.

"So how's the wrist feeling? Better now?" Sister Cook asked him as Sam climbed back onto the bed. He frowned and looked down at the new plaster cast – it was weird but he had no memory of his wrist being set again.

"We gave you a sedative," Sister Cook told him, pre-empting his question. "We needed you to be nice and calm when we fixed you up. You made a mess of the old one alright."

Sam chuckled humourlessly. "You know, I was so careful to keep that cast dry."

The nurse nodded and pushed the food towards him and began to flick through the chart at the end of his bed. "So how did you break it in the first place, Honey?"

Sam chuckled for real this time. _Oh well, you know... There was this guy who brought his dead girlfriend back to life and she turned out to be murderous, vengeful Zombie. I got my wrist busted when my brother used me as bait to catch her, but it was okay, coz after she tried to snap my neck, he stabbed a metal pole through her chest and pinned her to her coffin…The usual story._ "I had too much to drink and slipped in a puddle of beer." Sam replied instead.

Sister Cook shook her head and tutted. "Kids today. Now you eat all that up then you can take a shower – the bathroom is just down the hallway. Then when you're ready, you can go and visit that handsome brother of yours. He's up on the high care wards. Take the lift to the second floor and tell the nurse at the desk who you are. And if you're wondering what happened to your clothes, they're in the laundry. I'll have them all nice and clean and dry for you later."

Sam nodded and smiled at the Nurse. She was so nice, he almost felt like hugging her. Normally he and Dean were the ones saving people, and it was kind of a nice feeling having someone taking care of them for a change.

Jess had taken care of him. He had never asked her to, or expected her to do anything for him, but she had done it anyway. Little things like ironing him a shirt, cooking his favourite meal, picking him up after work, and he missed that. He'd never been able to discuss that kind of stuff with Dean because he knew his brother wouldn't understand – nobody had taken care of Dean since he was four years old and it made him kind of sad that his brother had never had anything like that, and maybe never would.

"Hey, thanks. I kinda lost it a little yesterday." Sam told Sister Cook, picking up a slice of toast.

"No problem Sweetheart. That's what I'm here for. All part of the service." The nurse replied, and with that, she disappeared back out into the corridor leaving Sam alone with his breakfast - but for some reason, he wasn't feeling all that hungry any more.

**-o-**

Sam had been terrified as he made his way to see his brother. Scared of what was going to be waiting for him. Dean had looked so awful yesterday and it was hard to see his brother like that - so weak - so hurt. Dean had always the strong one, the hard-ass, the smart mouth – had always been his guardian, his protector - always there for him, no matter what. He didn't know how he'd be able to go on with out him. He couldn't live this life without Dean. It was just too hard.

"Hey Bro." Sam had whispered, gently brushing a loose eyelash from his brother's face. "How you doing, man?"

He didn't know if Dean could hear him or not, but it didn't matter. At least he looked healthier than he had yesterday. A bit of colour had returned to his face and his lips had lost that awful blueness that had scared him so much. His eyes roamed his brother's face and body looking for signs that he was in any pain, deliberately avoiding the ventilator tube that was taped to his face and the dark bruises across his chest. Dean didn't move at all apart from his chest rising rhythmically with the hiss of the ventilator and his face was peaceful.

Happy that Dean wasn't dying just yet, Sam had settled down in the chair next to him and had dozed off. Only waking with a start when the pretty young doctor who had worked on Dean yesterday woke him with a gentle shake.

Sam wiped the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. God, he was so tired. Must be the sedatives they gave him. "Dean? - Is he ok?"

The doctor gave him a smile. "Yes, your brother is doing well." Then she held her hand out. "We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Dr Miller."

"Sam Winchester." Sam replied, shaking her hand with his good hand. "And I want to thank you for yesterday. Thanks for helping my brother. You saved his life."

Dr Miller shook her head. "No, you saved his life. We just put in all the after care. If you hadn't got the water out of his lungs yesterday, he would have died before you managed to get him here."

Sam's eyes fell to Dean's bruised chest. He had pounded his brother so hard trying get him to cough up the water his own arms ached from the effort of it.

"So how long does he need the tube?... The ventilator? The nurse, Sister Cook said you were going to take him off it today?" Sam asked. The vent was the one thing that he had hoped he would never see Dean hooked up to ever again.

Dr Miller frowned. "Sister Cook?"

"Yeah, African American lady, in her late forties? She brought me breakfast this morning and told me Dean was doing ok and you were going to take him off the vent…" Sam stopped talking because he realised that the doctor had no idea who he was talking about.

"I don't know a Sister Cook, I'm afraid." The pretty blond doctor replied, frowning. "Maybe she's an agency nurse. And until the sedation wears off, which could be another day or so, Dean will be staying on the vent. When he wakes up, we'll see how his oxygen levels are and go from there. I think it's going to be a longer road that you hoped it would be Sam."

But then, as if on cue, the heart monitor began to beep wildly as the older of the Winchester boys began to wake up.

**-o-**

One minute Dean had been in the darkness. Warm, comforting darkness and someone had been there with him, someone he couldn't remember now. The next minute he was back in the light, the noisy, pain filled light.

A terrible emptiness swept through him. The most profound feeling of loss he had ever experienced. He felt like screaming. But loss was something both Winchester boys had dealt with before. Just something else to choke down and swallow along with every other hurt.

Dean grabbed handfuls of the bed sheets and arched his back in agony. First the cold hit him, then the pain. There was something inside him, something in his throat. He tried to reach up, pull it away but his hands were tied down. He gagged and tried to cough but couldn't, tried to cry out but couldn't do that either. _Christ, someone help me,_ he prayed frantically. _Sammy, help me Goddammit!_

Something was beeping loudly to his left, and he could hear voices, someone shouting. Sam's voice calling his name.

Dean opened his eyes, that hot chick was looking down at him again and just behind her he could see Sam. His face pale and worried looking.

"Dean?" Sammy was yelling at him. "Dean, calm down. You're okay."

Okay? How was he okay? He was tied down and there was something in his throat, choking him. He kicked and writhed, trying to get free of whatever was holding him down, the movement causing a horrible pain across his chest. A pain he had experienced a few too many times in his life. Busted ribs. How on earth did that happen?

He tried to speak again, he desperately needed Sam to get this thing out of his throat, but he couldn't speak at all and tears of pain and frustration began to blur his vision.

Sam noticed the tears spill down his brother's cheeks and grabbed his hand. "It's ok Dean. You're okay."

Dr Miller checked the monitors by Dean's bedside and frowned. "The sedation shouldn't have worn off yet-"

Sam looked from Dean to the doctor desperately. He couldn't watch his brother suffer like this, the panic stricken look in his eyes. He was choking. "Take the tube out of him." He cried. "Please, get it out."

Dr Miller looked doubtful. "I don't know. We really need to check his 02 levels. I'll give him some more sedation. He'll go back to sleep."

"No!" Sam cried. "Please don't. Just take out the tube. Please… He's strong... He'll be okay. Just get it out of him."

Dr Miller sighed, looking down at Dean. The poor kid was struggling alright. She took another quick look at the monitor, then turned back to Sam, relenting. "Okay, we'll take him off the vent. But if he has any problems with his breathing, even if he starts looking tired, he's going straight back on it."

Sam nodded his head in agreement. Clutching Dean's hand in his own, oblivious to his brother's iron grip that was almost breaking his fingers.

Miller peered down at Dean, making sure he could see her face. "Dean, listen to me. My name is Doctor Miller. You have a tube in your throat. It's helping you breath but I'm going to take it out now."

Dean blinked away the tears, his eyes pleading with hers. He tried to swallow again and gagged. The beeping of the heart monitor becoming even more erratic.

She began gently un-taping the tube from his face. "Now after three, I want you to give me a nice big cough and we'll get rid of this tube for you. Okay?"

Dean blinked the tears away and nodded. Waited for her count then coughed as hard as he could as the doctor pulled the tube free. A moment later, the hateful thing was gone and he laid back on the bed, releasing the death grip on Sam's hand. His relief palpable.

He was silent for a moment, and lay still with his eyes closed, breathing heavily and coughing, then spoke for the first time, his voice hoarse and barely more than a whisper. "Where's Dad?"

Sam looked at his brother, confused. Not sure that he'd heard right? What was he talking about? "Dean…" Sam replied gently. "Dad's dead - He died. Don't you remember?"

Dean seemed to consider what Sam had told him for a moment, then nodded, "Right, of course." Then he open his eyes and frowned at his brother, gesturing towards the ventilator. "Don't you ever let anyone do that to me again, Sammy!" he gasped. His throat felt raw and his chest felt tight. He could hear himself wheezing as he breathed, but at least that damn tube was gone. Another minute of that thing in his throat and he thought he might actually have gone mad.

Sam opened his mouth to tell Dean that it had been for his own good, that it had helped him, then decided against it. "I won't Dean, I promise!" Sam replied, slipping back into the chair, weak with relief. "I'm just glad to have you back."

**-o-**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 **

**-o-**

Sam stayed in Dean's room from that moment on.

Dr Miller had told him to go home and rest countless times before realising there was no point, the kid wasn't listening. So she had some extra blankets and a pillow brought in for him instead.

Of course, she didn't know that for the Winchester boys, there was no home anymore and hadn't been for a long time, and that the last thing Sam wanted to do was leave his brother and go back to some crummy motel room where he could lay in some rock hard bed, wide awake all night, worrying about Dean.

No, the chair was just fine.

Dean had pretty much slept for the rest of the day. He had fought with Dr Miller about having the oxygen mask on his face, but he was too weary to put up much of a fight about it, and eventually gave in when she threatened him with the wrist restraints and then with the ventilator again. They had taken more of his blood for testing, hooked up more bags of fluid to his IV lines. Taken him for a chest X-ray and a brain scan. Sam had even made Dean smile, wishing the doctor good luck with finding one as they wheeled him off down the corridor.

Now Sam snuggled up in the chair, flicking through random TV channels as Dean slept fitfully beside him.

He never slept on his back. Nearly every night Dean would lie curled up on his side, hugging the pillows until he fell asleep. Sam secretly thought this was some sort of self-comforting thing like thumb-sucking, or he way he absently twirled strands of his own hair through his fingers sometimes, but of course had never mentioned this to his brother, knowing full well the response he would get… Dean would thank him kindly for the insight into his psyche and slap him upside the head for good measure. But because of all the tubes and lines going into him, and the pain from his fractured ribs, Dean had no choice of sleeping position and he was uncomfortable and restless.

Despite all he had seen, all the horrors he had witness in all the years hunting with his Dad, Dean slept the deep sleep of the just, compared to Sam, who had always been a fidget. Arms and legs everywhere, talking in his sleep, the lot. On several occasions when the brothers had been forced to share a bed, Dean had been woken with a elbow to the face and Sam had suddenly found himself on his butt on the floor, a pillow following soon after serving as an invitation for him to stay there. But now Dean was muttering quietly under his breath and moaning softly. His hands unconsciously going to the oxygen mask on his face. Once or twice Dean had spoken out loud and Sam had thought that he'd woken up, and a couple of times he'd begun to cough, but he seemed to still be out of it.

Only when Dean began calling out for their Dad did Sam go over to his brother's side and gently shook him awake. He couldn't bear to listen to that.

Dean blinked, trying to focus his eyes on his brother. He looked confused for a moment, not remembering where he was exactly.

"Hey." Sam said quietly, giving Dean's hand a quick squeeze. Surprised when Dean squeezed back and didn't immediately let go. "You okay?"

Dean frowned, his eyes darting around the room like he was looking for someone before settling back on his brother's face. He blinked a few times, then seemed to be back with him.

"Hey Sam." He whispered in reply. "What's up? You okay?"

Sam smiled and nodded. "I'm good. I got a nice soft chair and cable TV. How are you doing? Feel okay?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't sweat it."

Always the same, Sam thought. Dean never let anyone be concerned for him, never let anyone see him hurting. Always had to put on a brave face. Always had to be brave.

"You were calling out for Dad, you know." Sam told his brother.

Dean looked away. "Yeah, well they've got me on some pretty good drugs here Sammy. I'll be swearing that I saw Elvis in a minute."

Ah, the famous dry wit… Another of Dean's defences. Sam didn't buy it and carried on, regardless. "When you woke up after being on the ventilator, you asked where Dad was."

Dean bit his lip and took a deep, wheezing breath, bracing himself for what he knew was coming next. Why was Sammy badgering him? He was tired and hurting and in no mood for one of his brother's attempts at a good old Oprah style heart to heart. So he was delirious and had cried out for their dead father, so what? For weeks he had listened in the dark of one motel room after another to Sammy cry out Jess's name, over and over again in his sleep. It had broken his goddamn heart.

"I was dreaming about him, that's all." Dean replied softly. "Lack of oxygen, probably given me brain damage. Don't worry about it Sammy, please. Go back to watching your kiddy cartoons."

"It's Spongebob Squarepants… Your favourite." Sam replied, smiling. He was willing to leave it for now. Dean wasn't going to be going anywhere for a while. This was a conversion that could keep until another day. No point in get Dean all worked up. Wasn't going to do either of then any good.

"Spongebobwhat?" Dean asked, shifting in the bed, wincing as he tried to get more comfortable then closed his eyes, settling back down to get some sleep. "The only cartoon I dig is Thundercats. Now stop fretting like an old woman and get some rest."

Sam hesitated, chewing his lip and Dean thumped his fists down on the bed in frustration, glaring at him. "What, Sam?" He cried, not meaning to sound so irritated but he felt rotten and the kid sure knew how to get under his skin quick. Why couldn't he ever just accept it when he told him was ok? Why did he always have to make such a fuss? Why did he have to care about him so goddamn much?

"Dean, you know it was me who broke your ribs, don't you?"

Dean sighed, his face softening. He had sort of remembered coming too on the side of the river, seeing Sam's distraught face above him, feeling the icy cold and someone pounding on him... He had thought maybe that he'd dreamt it. Now he knew better. "Yeah, Sam. I had a pretty good idea… CPR?"

Sam nodded. "You breathed in half the river, I tried to do mouth to mouth but your lungs were full of water. I had to get it out." Sam lifted his new wrist cast to show his brother. "I broke the last one on your chest. I'm so sorry."

Dean looked into his brother's tired eyes and took his hand, giving it a good hard reassuring squeeze. A chick flick moment, he knew, but Sammy needed it. "You saved me, Sam. You did good." He muttered softly before the sweet darkness came for him once more.

**-o-**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 **

**-o-**

If Dean had been having strange dreams, it was nothing compared to the horror flick that was currently playing on the screen behind Sam's eyes.

Dean was in the river again, frantically scrambling for the surface, clawing at the face of the thing that held him down - the water dark and strangely thick like syrup. Everything was in slow motion and Sam was right there with him.

"Help me, Sam!" Dean yelled. He had dropped the gun and it floated slowly towards the unseen depths of the river bed below them. "Kill the bitch! Kill her before she kills you too!"

Sam was confused. The Demon that Dean had followed to his certain death was no longer the black eyed girl that he's been chasing for the past three days. It was now in the shape of a much older woman - yellow eyes glinting in the gloom. And that uniform? He _knew_ her…"

Dean's eyes closed, bubbles trailing from his open lips and he stopped struggling. The only movements were involuntary jerks that wracked through his body and he began to sink to the murky depths below.

"Dean, no. Don't leave me!" Sam screamed and tried to swim down and grab his brother before he disappeared out of sight, but the water was too thick… He couldn't move.

"Dean! - _Dean!"_ He yelled again in desperation. But it was too late, his brother was gone.

**-o-**

Dean woke with a start to the sound of his brother shouting out his name out in the darkness.

"Sammy?" He gasped, pulling himself up. His body stiff, ribs protesting wildly about the movement. The room was lit only by the TV that still played quietly in the corner and it took a moment for Dean's eyes to adjust to the dim light and be able to see where his brother was. Sam was still sitting in the chair by the bed with his head in his hands.

Dean couldn't see his brother's face. "Dude, you ok?"

Sam's shoulders slumped and he nodded, turning to face his brother. His eyes were shining with tears and his hands were shaking ever so slightly. "Yeah, I'm alright. You alright?"

Dean nodded, frowning. Sam didn't look alright at all. "What is it? A vision?" He began to cough again, a horrible hacking cough that felt like it would tear him apart. He closed his eyes for a moment as stars began to flash in front of them, but after a few deep, shaky breaths he began to feel okay again.

Sam waited for his brother to gain his composure then shook his head. "Just a bad dream I think. I'm okay, go back to sleep. You need the rest."

Dean eased himself back down and tried to get comfy again. Like that was gonna happen. "Why don't you go and get a motel room somewhere, Sam? You can't keep trying to sleep in that chair. You look like shit... You don't have to keep watch over me. I'm a big boy."

He was starting to get worried about that kid. Sam wasn't himself at all and he looked wiped out. Mind you, he hadn't seen himself in the mirror lately either. If he looked as good as he felt then he wasn't a pretty sight either.

The foxy blond doc had come by earlier that day and gone through his prognosis. It looked like he would live. His busted ribs would heal, his lungs were buggered but would recover with rest and time. His heart rate was still irregular but that was due to his immersion in the cold water and then the CRP. Apparently a cold heart is a sensitive heart... It didn't much like being thumped back to life when half frozen. All in all he was doing ok considering he'd been technically dead for a few minutes… All thanks to Sam. His brother really had saved his life, the real deal. He should be grateful, so why did he feel so goddamn pissed off? Why did he feel so - so _Cheated?_

Sam settled back into the chair and pulling the blankets up to his chin. "I'm here now, Bro. Might as well stay until morning."

"Okay. Sweet dreams, Sammy." Dean sighed, watching Sam fidget in the chair until he eventually fell asleep and deciding that he was going to have to check himself out of the hospital tomorrow just so that his brother could get some proper rest.

**-o-**

When Sam woke next it was morning and bright sunlight streamed through the blinds of the hospital room. He yawned and stretched out his long legs. He was so stiff. He was going to have to take Dean's advice and get a motel room. He couldn't sit in that chair any more. He needed a good night's sleep.

Rubbing his eyes, he looked over at his brother's bed, expecting to see him asleep or at least flicking through the channels of the TV but Dean was gone.

"Dean?" Sam called, getting gingerly to his feet. His legs just about able to support him. He stretched again and shook his feet, trying to get the circulation going again. He called his brother's name again as he looked around the room, but Dean was gone.

"Don't worry, Honey. He's just down the hall."

It was Sister Cook standing in the doorway, smiling at him. Sam hadn't heard her come in and her voice startled him slightly. She came in and started making Dean's bed. "He's having a shower, he wanted to clean up a bit. He didn't want to wake you, said you needed the sleep."

"Oh..." Sam replied, sitting back down in the chair. He looked at his watch, it was just gone 8 am. "Is he okay then? Is he feeling better?"

The nurse nodded and fluffed the pillows. "He looks much better this morning and the Doctor seems to be really happy with how he's doing. He's a luck boy, you know that? A real fighter."

"You have no idea." Sam muttered under his breath, rubbing his eyes with his good hand. God, he was so tired. He felt like climbing right on into Dean's bed and staying there for a week.

"So how are you doing, Sweetheart?" Sister Cook asked him. "You're looking even skinnier than you were the other day. You know you need to look after yourself as well as your brother. A person has to feed. You should go home and get some rest. Your brother will be ok without you here."

"Yeah, I know... It's just that we lost our Dad a little while ago, and our Mom died when we were little..." Sam wasn't sure why he was telling her this, spilling his guts. Maybe he had just got to the point where he had to speak to someone or go mad. God knew Dean didn't want to talk. "My brother is all I got left, you know. I have to look out for him. If I lost him too, I don't know what I'd do."

Sister Cook put the pillow down and came round the bed, laying a hand on his arm. "Sounds like you two have been through a lot. And now your Brother being hurt in a hunting accident, an all."

Sam rubbed his eyes an closed them again, If he could just grab another half an hour's sleep, he'd be fine. "Yeah, I think we need a holiday. Might head down to Vegas when he gets out of here. A little bit of R&R."

"Sounds like it'll do you good." The nurse replied, pulling the blanket up over him as Sam closed his eyes again. "You boys have a hard job, you need a break." But Sam never heard, he was asleep again.

Sister Cook smiled down at Sam, her yellow eyes glinting in the bright sunlight. "John Winchester would be so proud."

**-o-**

Dean lay in the hot bath, eyes closed and letting the steam ease his tight lungs. It still hurt a fair bit when he breathed deeply, but he was getting better, or so they kept telling him.

The water felt good, soothing his bruised body. That hot blond Doctor, Dr Miller hadn't wanted him to get out of bed, but he had argued with her and this time he had won. Not many people were prepared for how stubborn the Winchester boys could be when they put their minds to it.

Dr Miller had taken out the last remaining IV line and after listening to Dean's chest, decided that he wouldn't actually drop dead without the oxygen mask. At least she was thorough, he had to give her that.

At first he was only going to have a quick shower, but after one of the nurses helped him walk the short walk down to the bathroom, leaving the hospital room as quietly as possible so as not to wake Sam, he decided that he didn't actually have the strength to stand up on his own for long enough to shower. Three days in bed and he was weak as a kitten. Not good. He had a feeling it was going to be a while before he got back to doing any serious hunting again.

Dean looked down at his naked chest. The bruises across his breastbone had gone from black to purple and were now a lovely greenish colour, but at least now he could move his arms without biting his lips to prevent himself crying out in pain. He had put on a brave face for Sammy and that was exhausting in itself, if only the kid would go and get a room, he could let some of it out.

Sinking deeper into the water, Dean closed his eyes.

Sam had told him that he'd been calling out for their Dad in his sleep, that when the doctor had taken that hateful tube out of his throat, the first thing he had asked was where Dad was. John Winchester had been in his dreams pretty much constantly since he'd fallen in the river. His Dad had even been under the water with him.

When the light had begun to fade and Dean could no longer feel his body for the cold, when his brain had begun to shut down, John Winchester had been with him. Dean had seen him with his own dying eyes, felt his father's arm holding him up, barking orders at him to _Shoot the evil son of a bitch! _And of course, he had obeyed. He always obeyed.

Slipping under the water of the bath, Dean opened his eyes and peered up through the water. _Where are you, Dad? Why did you leave us?.. Why did you leave me? _But there was no answer, only the pounding of the blood in his ears. _Dad, please... _

He would have done anything to be able to speak to his Dad one more time, to ask him why he did it, why had he sacrificed himself to the very thing he'd been hunting for the past twenty-two years? The evil that had consumed the remaining Winchester's lives as much as the fire had consumed their Mother. And what had his Dad meant when he'd whispered those words in his ear the last time he'd been laying in a hospital bed? What he'd said about Sam? There were so many things he had wanted to ask, so many things he needed to tell his Dad and now it was too late - all too late.

Dean's lungs began to burn as he held his breath under the water and closing his eyes tightly, he breathed in, letting the water invade his body once again. Only this time there was no Demon holding him down, nothing keeping him under the water and he immediately grabbed the sides of the bath and pulled himself up, coughing up the water, hardly believing what he'd just tried to do.

This time there was no-one he had to hide from, no-one he needed to be brave for and sitting hunched up in the bathtub, hugging his knees to his chest, Dean began to cry.

**-o-**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**-o-**

Sam woke with a start with his brother shaking him urgently. "Come on Sam, we gotta go."

Sam blinked, shielding his eyes from the bright light pouring in through the blinds in Dean's hospital room. They were sore and felt gritty. "What's going on?" He asked, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands before looking up at his brother. "What are you doing out of bed? Did Dr Miller say it was okay?"

Dean shrugged and went over to the bed, packing his stuff into the duffle bag that Sam had brought in for him the day before. "Don't worry about that, Sam. I'm fine. Never felt better."

Sam arched his eyebrow, giving his brother the look Dean usually referred to as his _'Spock' _look. It meant doubtful -very doubtful. _"If I was Captain Kirk and that pointy eared bastard kept looking at me like that, I woulda kicked his freakin' ass all the way back to Vulcan."_ Dean had once told him, completely straight faced. Meaning if Sam looked at him like that one more time, he was gonna kick his freakin' ass all the way back to Kansas. _"No Goddamn respect for his Captain! That lanky bastard always thought he knew better!"_

"But -" Sam began. Dean held up his hand to silence him.

"Don't start, Sam, I'm not in the mood. I wanna get out of this place now. Come on." And he went back to haphazardly throwing his stuff into the bag. "Goddammit Sam, Andale! Andale! Arriba! Arriba!"

Sam got to his feet and stretched - joints popping painfully. "That doesn't mean what you think it means, you know."

Dean shot him a withering look, "Just get your crap together, Sam and let's get going. I've spent too long in this place and I want to get gone."

"Fine!" Sam replied, frowning. Did his brother get out of bed on the wrong side this morning or what? He'd though Dean might have been pleased that he felt better, obviously not. "But I don't see what the rush is? You need to get discharged and everything. And it's not like we have any jobs to go to or anything important to do."

Dean shook his head. "Nah, there are always things to do, little Bro. Evil things to hunt down and kill, scores to settle. You know the drill. And we're just wasting time here." Dean smiled at his brother and slapped Sam on the shoulder. "Now where the hell are my boots?"

Sam looked around and pointed to Dean's black leather Timberlands that he'd put into the corner of the room by the radiator, hoping to dry them out a bit before his brother needed them again.

Dean smiled and strode past Sam, scooping the boots of the floor and plonking himself into the chair that Sam had been practically living in for the past few days, he bent over and began to lace them up around his feet. "Mmmm... Toasty!" He beamed.

Sam frowned, confused. There was something not quite right going on but he was so tired, it made his head hurt to think about it. It would be easier not to start an argument with his brother right now, especially as he was acting so weird. He would just put it down to Dean's medication. Plus, the quicker they got out of here, the quicker they could find a nice cheap motel somewhere and the quicker he could get some proper sleep. It was all good, _wasn't it? _And doing what Dean told him to, Sam began to gather his few bits and pieces together as well as the rest of his brother's few possessions. His toothbrush, the amulet that Sam had given him all those years ago, and his wallet. All things that Dean strangely hadn't bothered to pack into the duffle bag.

Dean finished lacing up the boots and jumped to his feet, still beaming. "Are we ready to go then, Sammy?"

Sam nodded and yawned. "Yeah, I guess so -" He wasn't overly sure that Dean leaving the hospital was a good idea, but just couldn't face a fight right now and slinging the bag over his shoulder he followed his brother out of the room. Besides, It did look like Dean was feeling much better.

**-o-**

Instead of heading for the exit, Dean lead Sam through the corridors of the hospital until they came to a set of elevators. Sam frowned and looked at his brother, but Dean just smiled happily back at him. He hadn't seen his brother look so pleased in a long while. He supposed he'd be pleased if he was in Dean's shoes, pleased that he felt better, but there was something slightly off about his expression. He didn't just looked pleased, he looked pleased with himself. Like he was enjoying some private joke that he didn't intend on sharing.

Dean pressed the down button and carried on smiling as he patiently waited for the lift to come. But Sam could take no more.

"Okay, that's it. What going on, Dude?" He snapped.

Dean glanced over. "Well Sammy, when I was discussing my prognosis with that hot blonde doctor chick, she happened to mention how there had been strange occurrences happening lately on the lower levels of the hospital. And seeing as it's kind of our job to check out strange occurrences, I thought the least we could do is check it out for her. She did save my life after all - and without breaking any of my bones too."

Sam's face flushed with colour, hurt and furious all at the same time. God, how many times did he have to tell Dean he was sorry? "That was below the belt, Bro." He muttered, staring down at the floor.

Dean grinned at him, "Oh come on Sam, don't be a wuss. I'm only messing with you. If you hadn't busted three of my ribs, I'd be as dead as our dear old Dad now. You'd be toasting me over a bonfire... Like father, like son. Course you'd have had to dry me out a bit first."

"Dean! _Jesus!"_ Sam yelled, glaring at him. What was wrong with him? Why would he say such a mean thing?

The elevator came and Dean stepped in. He gestured for Sam to join him and Sam reluctantly followed him inside the car. The doors closed and Dean pressed the button marked with the letter M. The morgue. A moment later the lift doors opened and Dean casually walked out and off down the corridor. Sam followed him out of the lift but stopped. This all felt so wrong.

"Samuel Winchester!" Dean yelled in his best Gameshow host voice from down the end of the corridor, disappearing round the corner, out of Sam's sight. "Come on down!"

"Asshole!" Sam muttered under his breath. If Dean hadn't been so recently close to dying, Sam would have popped him one in the mouth. But like he had said, Sam had already hurt him enough this week. And shrugging the duffle bag higher up onto his shoulder, he followed his brother down towards the morgue.

**-o-**

"So what are we looking for?" Sam sighed, dropping the bag to the floor by the slab in the middle of the room. The place was deserted, it looked like it hadn't been used for a while, which was actually the case. A new modern morgue had been build six months ago in a new wing of the building leaving the old one unused while the managers of the hospital decided what to re-model the space into.

Dean looked around, smiling that same smug smile. All the old fridges were still there, the old slab, some of the old instruments. "Well Sammy, I guess we're looking for evil. You see any yet?"

Sam turned his face away, trying to conceal his anger. "No Dean, I don't see any evil." He was trying to be patient, but his brother was pissing him off mightily.

Dean walked over to some of the fridges and began to open the doors, peering into the dark of the empty compartments. He turned back to Sam. "You ever been in one of these?"

Sam frowned. The first prickles of unease creeping into his brain. This weirdness was more than just Dean being high on medication. "What?" he replied.

"You should get a haircut, Sammy, your hair must be growing into your ears. Making you deaf." Dean replied, pointed inside the compartment. "I said, you ever been inside one of these?"

Sam shook his head. "No, of course not. Why? Have you?"

"Well, not me personally... I always thought they looked a little uncomfortable. What do you think?" Dean replied wandering over to his brother casually, hand in pockets.

Sam unconsciously took a step back, every nerve in his body suddenly on edge. Something was wrong, very badly wrong. "What's going on Dean." He yelled. His hands curling into fists. The air was thickening with malevolence and Dean's eyes flashed with malice behind their sunny smile.

"You look tired Sammy. Not enough sleep?" Dean smirked, still walking towards his brother slowly. "I know you've been watching over me the whole time I've been in this godforsaken place."

"And?" Sam replied, backing away until his back touched the cold metal of the fridges behind him. "I was worried. You were really sick."

Dean continued. "Well the funniest part is that I've been trying to hide from you the whole time you've been here. Every time you fell asleep, I cried in the dark - and I freakin' _prayed_ for you to fall asleep, man. You know how hard it is to keep all this hurt in, Sam? You know hard he works at trying to keep himself together? You have any idea how much he is missing his beloved Dad? All his life, your brother has had to be brave for you, look out for you, be responsible for you. You know how much that wears him down? He's almost down to the bone now, Sammy."

The Demon had given up the pretence now, knowing that Sam had seen through the disguise anyway. Yellow eyes flashed where Dean's green ones had just been. It didn't matter much now anyway, it had the youngest Winchester right where it wanted him. Exhausted, emotionally wiped out and most importantly, away from the source of his strength.

His brother.

**-o-**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**-o-**

"Dean. You in there?" Sam yelled through the bathroom door.

Dean opened his eyes and sighed. He'd been laying in the tub for a long time, the water was almost cold and he knew it had been only a matter of time before Sam came to find him. "Yeah, it's me, Sam." He replied, coughing. He shivered suddenly, Goosebumps breaking out on his bare flesh and with a huge effort he pulled himself upright. The room spun momentarily and the first throb of a headache stabbed him in the temples. Maybe he should have listened to the doc after all and stayed in bed? She had warned him that he would feel weak, maybe even dizzy. His heart rate was still over the place.

"Are you okay, Bro? Can I come in?" Sam asked, then opened the door without waiting for a reply.

"Dude!" Dean cried in protest and cupping the tepid bathwater in his hands, he splashed his face, hoping that Sam wouldn't notice his puffy red eyes and realise that he'd spent the last half an hour helplessly sobbing like a five year old girl with a skinned knee. But by the look on his brother's face, Sam had other things on his mind. He dropped the pile of Dean's fresh clothes that he held in his arms on the edge of the sink and sat on the closed toilet seat beside him.

"You okay?" He asked him, frowning. "You look awful!"

"I'm just peachy, Sammy." Dean replied, coughing again. A chill made him shudder and he clutched a wrinkled, waterlogged hand to his head. "You think you could help me out of the tub?" He was actually pretty glad to see his little brother, he didn't think he had the strength to get himself back to his room unaided and he hadn't been looking forward to having to pull the red emergency cord that hung down from the ceiling next to the bath.

Sam jumped up and took hold of his brother's arm. Dean took a deep, wheezing breath, and gritting his teeth against the protest from his injured ribs he managed to pull himself to his feet using the rail on the wall and his little brother for support.

"You alright?" Sam asked him, ignoring his brother's nakedness. They had slept an arms distance away from each other in the same room for most of their lives, fixed up each other's battered, injured bodies so many times. Modesty had ceased to be an issue years ago. Dean swayed a little on his feet and clutched Sam's shirt in his fists to steady himself.

"Dude, are you okay?" Sam asked him again.

"Um, yeah." Dean replied, closing his eyes for a moment to try to clear the black spots that had reappeared in front of them. His knees buckled slightly and he gave a little moan of pain. This was not good. Why did he feel so freakin' _weak_? "I need to sit down." He gasped.

"Hold on." Sam replied, and wrapping his brother's arm around his shoulder and his own arm around his brother's waist, he all but lifted him out of the tub and wrapping him in a towel, he sat him down on the edge of the bath. "You want me to call a nurse or something?"

Dean looked up at his little brother, his face ashen, eyes red-rimmed and puffy and knew that he couldn't do it anymore, he just couldn't hide the pain. "Get me out of here, Sam. I need to get out of this place." He pulled the towel tightly around himself and his lip trembled ever so slightly. It frightened him to feel the tears so ready to start flowing again. He thought he'd cried himself dry already and he didn't want to lay that on his little brother after everything else. Sam had enough guilt already.

Sam hunkered down in front of Dean and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "You know what Dean? I think you should stay here."

Dean bit his lip and frowned. "What? - _No!"_

Sam smiled and nodded. "Sorry Bro, but you should stay. I'm serious."

"Sam, please. I feel like I'm cracking up... " Dean cried, his voice breaking. He tried to choke back the words that were about to spill out of him, but he couldn't stop them, they poured out of him like poison from an infected wound. "Every time I close my eyes I can hear Dad's voice. I saw him, Sammy. When I fell in the river, I saw him. He was there with me. He told me to shoot the Demon. If I hadn't heard him, I'd be dead, I would have just let that thing hold me down until I drowned, but how could he have been there? We burned him, Sam. His spirit should be at rest. I feel - " He dashed away a tear that slipped down his cheek with the back of his hand. "Sammy, I feel like I'm losing my Goddamn mind."

Sam got to his feet and walked over to the pile of clothes, scooped them up and took them back to his brother. "Get dressed Dean, I'll take you back to your room and we'll talk about it, okay?"

Dean stared at his Sam. Hadn't he heard what he'd said? For once he'd actually shared - something his brother was always trying to make him do, but Sam had just ignored him. "No Sam. I need to get out of here. You gotta help me. _Please?"_

"Dean, just get dressed!" Sam snapped at his brother, thrusting the clothes at him. His face dark, eyes blazing. "Do what I tell you to do for once in your stupid life. You can't hear Dad and you can't see him because Dad is dead. He is no more. He has ceased to be. He killed himself to save your pathetic life, remember? Maybe you have brain damage… Hearing things? Or maybe it's just a guilty conscience?"

Dean stared at his brother mutely, too shocked at Sam's words to answer back. Then he took the clothes in his shaking hands began to slowly, painfully dress himself, quietly sobbing like his heart had just broken. He couldn't help it. Sam's words were more painful than any injury he'd ever sustained and he just wanted to crawl away and die somewhere.

His eyes were so full of tears as he pulled on his Sweat pants and clean white T-shirt that he didn't even notice that Sam's eyes were not just blazing now, they glittered yellow in the sunlight as they looked down at him, gloating.

"The bad ass Dean Winchester, crying like a little girl. Oh your Daddy would be so proud." The Demon who currently wore Sam's shape sneered mockingly. "Can you imagine what he would be saying to you right now?"

Dean looked up, blinking, trying to clear his blurred vision. If his mind wasn't so foggy, if his body so broken, he would have realised what was going on the moment the Sam shaped thing had stepped foot in the room, but he was well below par, his hunter's senses dulled by a haze of medication and exhaustion, and only that very second was it dawning on him what was going on. Cursing himself, he forced himself to his feet and glared at the Demon.

"Don't speak about my father!" He murmured, clenching his jaw in anger.

"Dean, Dean, Dean." The thing replied, shaking it's Sam shaped head. "Such a fighter. Like dog with a bone. You should just let it go. This futile chase will just end up getting your brother killed. Just like dear old Dad. And I can assure you, when Sam goes, it won't be pretty and he will not be going to a better place… Get my drift?"

Dean clenched his fists, his body rigid with fury but the Demon just laughed. "You think you can fight, the state you're in, Dean-O?"

Dean smiled humourlessly and shrugged. "We'll find out in a second, won't we?"

"If we must." the Demon sighed, and with a flick of its wrist it sent the eldest Winchester flying through the air. Dean gasped in pain as his head collided with the tiled wall behind him, stars scattering across his vision as he slid bonelessly to the floor.

"I'll take that as a no then." The Demon replied, grinning with glee. "And I'd stay down if I were you."

Dean tried to speak, try to tell the thing that wore his brother's face where to go but all he got for his trouble was a sharp kick to the stomach which drove the remaining breath from his lungs. Gasping, he curled into himself trying to protect his injured ribs but the Sam shaped Demon kicked him again.

Dean let out a desperate yelp of pain and frantically tried to drag in air to his battered lungs, fear stabbing him in the heart for the first time as he coughed and tasted the faint coppery tang of blood in his mouth. He curled up into a ball on the floor, fighting the darkness that swirled before his eyes and he never even saw the vicious blow that finally robbed him of his consciousness coming.

**-o-**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**-o-**

"Dean? Dean - wake up Bro!" Sam cried out, his voice echoing loudly in the empty morgue as he sat struggling against the restraints that he had been shackled up in. The very restraints that had been around Dean's wrists only a few days before when he'd been deliriously fighting against the doctors and nurses as they tried to save his life.

Sam was sitting in a chair in the abandoned morgue opposite his brother who was laid out on the slab in the middle. The whole back of Dean's hair was matted with clotted, half-dried blood and a thin rivulet trickled from the back of his brother's head, down his neck and into the drain hole in the autopsy slab and Sam frantically pulled against the restraints, trying to see if Dean was ok. If he was breathing even.

"Goddamnit!" Sam yelled up at the Demon who stood over his brother. "If you've hurt him, I'm gonna send you straight back to Hell, you banana eyed _bitch_!"

"Sam Winchester. I'm shocked. I'd expect that language from your brother here, but not from you. You kiss your mother with that mouth?" The Demon replied, smiling and glancing down at Dean as he lay unmoving below. It was back to its original form, the nurse that Sam had come to know and love, Sister Cook. Of course, it wasn't the _original_ form, but it was the one that Sam was most familiar with. Then the Demon began to laugh. "Oops, I forgot. Mommy's dead, isn't she?"

"You leave my Mother out of this. You freakin' _whorebag!_" Dean's broken, paper thin voice hissed from the slab, and Sam almost cried with relief on hearing his brother speak. They weren't the most poetic words he had ever heard come out of his big brother's mouth, but they were like music to Sam's ears. Dean wasn't dead. Hurt maybe, but okay enough to throw an insult the way of something wicked.

Sam's eyes flicked from his brother, to the Demon, trying to pick up from Dean what he should do, how he should play this, but Dean was looking vacantly up at the ceiling, desperately trying to blink himself back to lucidity when all he really wanted to do was close his eyes and go back to sleep.

"Stay awake Dean-O, come on, keep those pretty little peepers open." The Demon told him, clicking its fingers above Dean's face. "You, me and Sammy have some talking to do."

At Sam's name, Dean seemed to come to a little more, and he looked round until his eyes found his brother's. Relief broke across his face. "Sam? Is that really _you_?"

"Yeah Dean, It's really me. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Dean replied, his voice cracked and breathy. Actually he was pretty far from fine, but by the look of the situation they were in, now wasn't the best time to start sharing how dreadful he felt. Now was a time to choke down the pain like he'd done a million times before. What was another concussion anyway? If he was lucky he might even live to suffer for it later. "You okay, Sammy?" He asked his brother.

Sam nodded in reply, wincing in sympathy for his brother. Dean looked awful and Sam knew he must be hurt bad as he wasn't tied down to the slab with anything as far as he could see, and yet he hadn't even tried to sit up, or really move at all. If he was okay, Dean would have been up on his feet, spoiling for a fight as soon as he regained consciousness. Despite this, Sam felt a small flicker of hope at this, knowing that if the Demon knew anything about them at all, then Dean would be firmly tied down with ropes, chains… Anything else it could get its hands on.

"I'm gonna get us out of this, Sam." Dean murmured softly, and Sam could have cried at those words. Half dead and still Dean was still trying to protect him. He would still fight tooth and nail, fight to the death to save him.

The more time Sam spent with his brother now the two of them were adults, the more he was starting to realise a startling truth about him. Dean really never thought about himself. He thought about a lot of things, their next job, how they were going to get money, he thought about his beloved car but mostly he thought about Sam and how he was going to keep him safe. Dean was a man of few wants and simple pleasures and the thing he gained the most pleasure from was being with his family, from being with his little brother.

Sam sort of understood why his Dean was like this, but had never felt the same way. He loved Dean but Sam had always been desperate to live a normal life, and to him, normal meant leaving. Normal for Dean, on the other hand, meant being with his family, being with Sam.

Dean had once been a part of a happy little family with a Mom and a Dad and a baby brother. He had once been safe and secure with his whole future laid out before him, and Sam knew that Dean would give anything to have that life back. A life where had been able to fall asleep at night, safe in the arms of his Mother instead of clutching a pillow with a Bowie knife hidden underneath it, a world where his Father was still Dad and not some drill sergeant training him for a war that no-one knew existed. A world where he hadn't been expected to become some sort of single parent for his kid brother while still a small child himself. The only way Dean felt that he had that long ago life back was to be with his family and now that their Dad was gone, Dean's whole world revolved around Sam, and Sam found this both comforting and terrifying.

"He tried to kill himself, you know. Just now, in the bathroom." The Demon said, a smug expression crossing its face and it bent down until it was level with Sam. It was staring at him, trying to gauge his reaction.

Sam frowned, and looked from the Demon's face to his brother's. Dean's eyes were closed, pale lips tightly pressed together and he didn't look back at his brother even though he could feel Sam's eyes boring into him.

"You're a liar." Sam snapped back at the thing.

"Oh no, it's true." The Demon replied, smiling malevolently. "Why don't you tell him, Dean? I feel like this is time for sharing, don't you?"

Dean wanted nothing more than to climb right off the slab and hit the thing until it no longer resembled a human being, until there was nothing living in it anymore, but his broken body wouldn't co-operate. Even speaking was becoming an effort and he let out a hoarse growl of pain and frustration. "Don't listen to it Sam. They lie. Demons, they all lie."

"Tut tut, Dean." Sister Cook scolded and laid a hand on Dean's forehead, holding him down, holding him still. She looked down into his eyes and smiled sourly. "Lying is bad - It's a sin. But then you know a thing or two about lying, don't you, sweetheart?"

"Shut up!" Dean yelled. Glaring murderously at the thing. But of course, Demons never did what Dean told them too. Life would be so much easier if they did.

The Demon smiled at him and carried on regardless. "Why don't you tell your brother how you lay in that bathtub and tried to drown yourself again. Why don't you tell him how you wished he hadn't pulled you out of that river? Why don't you tell him how you'd rather be with your dead father than be with him, about how many times you've held that big old hunting knife of yours to your wrists, just trying to pluck up the courage to stick it in and drag it all the way up to the inside of your elbow. Or the times you've put the barrel of your Glock in your mouth. Tell him how angry you are, Dean. Angry with your Dad, angry with yourself for letting him die. Tell Sam how angry you are at him. Tell him how much you're hurting!"

Dean closed his eyes again, feeling Sam's eyes burning into him - questioning, demanding to know if it was true, but what could he say? It was.

Dean didn't want to die, not really, but it was getting to the point lately when the only time he felt alive was when he was trying to kill something. It didn't feel like living, it felt like surviving. And it wasn't like he had anyone to tell this to. Sam had enough going on in his own head without Dean adding to it. Who else was there to tell? - Bobby?... Ellen?... He didn't think so.

Sam was quiet for a moment, his eyes cast to the floor, then he looked up at his brother, his face a mixture of sadness and despair. "You wished that I'd let you die, Dean?" He asked him quietly. "You tried to _kill_ yourself?"

"No Sammy!" Dean yelled angrily in reply which started him coughing again - awful, painful coughing that doubled him up as he lay on the slab, and when he finally managed to get himself under control, he was slightly alarmed to taste blood in his mouth once more. "I don't want to die, Sam. Of course I don't want to die! It's just hard, you know? And I'm tired. I get so damn tired sometimes... Since Dad died it all seems so - so_ futile_." He gasped in reply.

Since they lost their Dad, Dean had struggled. Really struggled. Barely holding himself together. Sam knew this, he saw his brother hurting every day, living with his anger, living with his guilt - his fear that one day he might have to put his brother down like some sort of rabid dog. There wasn't anything he could say or do to make it go away. Like Dean had said himself, what could Sam possibly say to make it better?

"Well you never talk to me, Dean. I try to talk but you wont. No chick flick moments, remember?" Sam yelled, shaking his head.

"This isn't really the time to talk about our brotherly intimacy issues right now, Sam. In case you hadn't notice, we got a bit of Demon issue going on right here."

Sister Cook looked down at Dean and shook her finger at him. "Be nice to your Brother, Dean. He's the only one who stuck around, remember? The only person in the whole world who can stand to be around you." Then she whirled around to look at Sam. "And you. You're so busy being angry, so busy wishing that your life was different that you never stop to think how your brother feels. That boy has some big bad issues!"

"What are you?" Dean replied, narrowing his eyes at her. "Evil Oprah?"

Sister Cook looked down at him and without warning, her hand snaked out and smacked him in the forehead, banging the back of his head into the slab. Dean winced in pain as the black dots began to reappear in the corners of his vision. "You fugly _Bitch_! That freakin' hurt!" he hissed under his breath.

"Fugly? Oh Dean..." The Demon replied, beginning to pace back and forth between Sam's chair and the autopsy slab. "You don't like this little old glamour of mine? - How about this?" And as the brothers stared at the Demon, its form changed, rippling like water over the stones of a riverbank, from the nurse to the black eyed girl that Dean had chased onto the bridge, from Sam to Dean and finally to their Dad. The form of John Winchester stood before them and Dean moaned and turned his face away, closing his eyes tightly.

"So how do you like this body?" The John shaped Demon asked.

"Don't." Sam gasped, looking away. "Please - don't!"

"Look at me, Son."

Sam closed his eyes, he felt sick and he heard Dean utter a half-choked sob from over on the slab. This was like some terrible bad dream, a nightmare. The last time their Dad had stood in front of them, eyes glittering like burning embers, Dean had almost been torn to pieces. Then the crash…

"It's not real." Sam said quietly. Forcing himself to look back up at the creature that wore the illusion of his Dad's skin. "You're not our Dad, you're not that nurse… You're not the Demon that killed our Mom and Jess - I can tell that. You're like some two-bit impostor. Who are you?"

The John shaped Demon threw back its head and laughed. "I have many names, Sam Winchester. I am Guilt, I am Regret… I am Legion!"

"And I need an old priest and young freakin' priest!" Dean murmured from over on the slab.

The Demon spun round, its form reverting back to the nurse once more and it glared at Dean. "You_ must_ be suicidal… Or failing that, you must be very stupid!"

Dean coughed, clutching his chest with his hand. He had decided that something inside him was very definitely broken. "The power of Christ compels you?" He asked weakly.

"Dean, _don't_!" Sam yelled, frantically pulling at the restraints. It was just like Dean to wisecrack at a time like this, divert attention to himself and away from his brother in an effort to protect him. Most of the time it worked and Dean ended up getting his ass kicked twice as bad and for twice as long.

Dean glanced at his brother, their eyes meeting for a moment. A brief unspoken conversation that they'd had a hundred times before. Sam shook his head, but Dean looked away and back to the Demon.

"Your mother sucks cocks in hell?" He asked the Demon, completely straight-faced and a moment later he found himself lying on his back on the floor over by the fridges. And if he hadn't been sure about something being broken inside him before, he was a hundred percent sure now.

**-o-**

As the Demon loomed over his injured brother, Sam shook loose the scalpel that he'd managed to scoop up from the side when he had been lured into the morgue. Sam's Spidey-Sense had tingled enough for him to acquire a weapon. As their father had always drummed into them, it was better to have a weapon and not need one than to need a weapon and not have one, and as strange things had definitely been afoot at the Circle K, Sam had grabbed a discarded scalpel from the work top opposite the slab without being noticed and slipped it up inside his plaster cast.

Feeding the scalpel through his fingers, he managed to get the blade against the edge of the restraints and cut through enough for him to be able to rip one hand free, keeping his eyes on Dean and the Demon over the other side of the room. Dean was currently trying to scoot away from the thing, propelling himself backwards with his legs until his back came into contact with the fridges behind him, then he had nowhere else to go.

The Demon chuckled with glee and placed a sneakered foot onto Dean's chest, putting more and more weight on him until he began to cry out in pain. Dean tried to push the thing away, but he could barely lift his arms, barely draw breath. The world was beginning to swim away again and fear swept through him - not for himself as usual, the fear was for what the thing would do to Sam when he was out of the picture.

"Dean! Hold on!" Sam yelled, frantically sawing at the other restraint but he only had his plastered hand free and it was taking too long. And just as both the brother's had given up hope for a happy ending to this fight, the door of the morgue slammed wide open.

**-o-**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**-o-**

"What are you?" A familiar voice yelled from the doorway and all three figures looked round to see the pretty young woman with dishevelled blonde hair standing in the doorway, glaring at the nurse shaped Demon.

"Doc?" The brothers said in unison, looking from her to each other in total confusion. In her hands Doctor Miller held a revolver, its barrel glinted copper coloured in the dim light and she had it pointed at the Demon's head.

"I asked you a question and you have precisely ten seconds to answer me before I put an iron slug between your eyes," she said, ignoring Sam and Dean and taking a step closer to the Demon. Her finger was poised over the trigger and she looked as if she meant business. "What are you?"

The Demon hesitated and lifted its foot slightly, giving Dean enough chance to twist out from underneath and begin to crawl painfully away toward his brother.

The Demon's eyes were back to the soft brown of Sister Cook's and it looked uncertainly from one brother to the other and back to Miller - all three of them seemed to be as confused as one another.

"I'm Sister Cook… I work here." The thing stammered.

Doctor Miller took another step closer, never taking her eyes of the nurse shaped Demon, the gun pointed squarely between its eyes. "You're lying. I've never seen you before in my life!"

The Demon opened its mouth to argue, then thought better of it and shrugged its shoulder instead. "What can I say, you caught me."

Miller glanced over at Dean. "And I told you to stay in bed. But you wouldn't listen, would you? You know, I've never met anyone so stubborn in my whole life…"

Dean let out a harsh chuckle that to Sam's ears sounded more like a half-choked sob. "Stubborn is my middle name, Doc." He gasped in reply.

"Can you get up?" She asked him. "Think you can untie your brother?"

Dean, who was already attempting to pull himself to his feet using the fridges for support and failing shook his head and replied. "I don't think so." Then his knees buckled under him and he slipped back to the floor, panting with effort and Sam winced. He could hear Dean wheezing from over the other side of the room.

Miller quickly glanced at the older Winchester and frowned. He really wasn't in very good shape. "Ok, scrap that. You just stay there and keep still instead. Can you do that?"

"Absolutely." Dean gasped in reply, sinking further down to the faded blue linoleum until his head was actually resting on it. Blood was still trickling steadily from the wound in the back of his head and it began to pool on the floor around him. He closed his eyes again.

"Dean?" Sam yelled in alarm at seeing his brother in trouble yet again. Dean was almost as pale as he'd been when Sam had first pulled him from the river and his brows were pulled together in pain. Sam furiously began to saw at the restraint again. "Doctor Miller, you mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

The doctor shook her head and shrugged, _like she had any idea? _Edging towards the younger Winchester, still keeping her eyes on the Demon, she switched hands with the big copper coloured gun and bent down, deftly undoing the wrist restraint that was keeping Sam in the chair.

Once freed, Sam jumped up and backed away, looking from Miller to the Demon to Dean, then his eyes returned to the gun. It was a huge Smith and Wesson 686 'Distinguished Combat Magnum' revolver - a serious gun. Bobby had taught him and Dean to shoot one just like it as soon as their hands were big enough to hold the thing and their wrists strong enough not to break from the recoil. This gun seemed to be customised though, copper coloured barrel instead of the usual stainless steel and the wooden handle inlaid with the letters L and M.

"Are you a _hunter_?" He asked her, incredulous.

"Nope,_ I'm_ a doctor." And she tugged at the stethoscope that hung around her neck to reiterate that point. "But my _Dad_ was a hunter, as was his Dad before him." She replied, switching the weapon back into her right hand. "This was his gun - mine now, I suppose. I keep it in my locker. Old habits, you know?" Her eyes clouded suddenly as she glanced at the weapon, momentarily lost in memories. Then she was back. "I thought I'd fight the fight my own way. I suppose you could call me a conscientious objector. I didn't want to hunt, I wanted to go to school, get an education and have a life."

Sam and Dean looked at each other and Sam couldn't stop himself from grinning.

"I hope that gun fires _magic_ bullets?" Dean asked her.

"Consecrated Iron, hollow tipped and filled with holy colloidal silver." She replied. And Dean nodded in concurrence. That should do the trick nicely.

"How did you know we were down here?" Sam asked, now almost in awe of her. She had just become his idol.

"Well… I've been keeping my eyes on you guys since you got here. I had an idea who you were. I've heard the name Winchester before. I'm surprised you didn't use an alias when you came in." She nodded sympathetically towards Dean on the floor. "Plus no regular Joe Public has that many scars unless they are some sort of cage fighter or stuntman. So I kinda put two and two together and came up with hunter."

"But how did you know we were in trouble?" Sam asked her.

Miller looked at the younger Winchester. "When you went walkabouts with "your brother" down to the basement and I knew full well that he was in the bathroom I kind of figured something was up, Then when I looked for Dean to see if he was ok, and he was nowhere to be seen, I knew something was wrong. Then there was that nurse that you'd mentioned a few times that I'd never heard of. I pretty much know everyone who works here, it's a small town, you know?"

"But how did you know we were down _here_?" Sam continued. This was getting weirder by the second - Demon nurses, hot hunter doctors… What was coming next? Hellspawn Candystripers?

"The magic of CCTV. I saw you disappear down the hallway with someone who clearly wasn't Dean, the way he was walking was all wrong for someone with his injuries. You were nowhere else that I could see so I came down to see if you were here." Miller replied.

"And I'm old man Myers from the amusement park and I woulda gotten away with it if it wasn't for you pesky kids. Yada yada yada" The nurse shaped Demon butted in. "What is this? – Scooby Doo?"

"That what I was thinking!" Dean murmured from down on the floor. "Hurry up and shoot that damn thing, Buffy."

"He gets cranky when he's hurt." Sam offered in the way of an apology and he could feel Dean glaring at him. If looks could kill...

Miller glanced at Dean, frowning. "I can't just shoot her!"

"Give the gun to Sam then." He replied. "He'll do it!" And Sam held his good hand out to take the gun from her, but she hesitated, unwilling to give over the weapon until she knew exactly what was going on.

The Demon smirked and held its hands up in a gesture of mercy. "Hey, what did I ever do to you? I was nothing but nice to you, Sam Winchester! I even brought you breakfast."

Sam shook his head and pointed down at Dean on the floor, still bleeding. "Nice to me? How about trying to drown my brother? How about trying to mess with his head until he became suicidal? How about pretending to be our Dad to drive him nuts and then trying to bash in his head against the wall?"

"I wasn't suicidal, Sam!" Dean groaned from the floor, rubbing the heel of his shaking hand into his eyes, trying to clear the black spots from his vision. He shivered, feeling very cold all of a sudden. He didn't even realise that his teeth had began to chatter.

"Like I said," the thing replied. "What did I ever do to you? You just got in the way, Sam - Like you always do. You're not the one we want to get rid of. You're the one we need to keep alive. You're the _chosen one_, after all."

Miller glanced uncertainly at the youngest Winchester.

"It's a long story." Dean said faintly, seeing the doctor's look of uncertainty. "Shoot the damn thing and we'll discuss it over a cup of coffee and some Vicodin. My head really freakin' hurts by the way, if anyone cares..."

Miller nodded and looked back to Sam, motioning towards Dean with the gun barrel. "Why don't you go and help your brother up, put some pressure on that cut to try and stop it bleeding."

Sam nodded and ducked around the side of the room towards his brother, keeping his eyes on the Demon as he went until he reached the fridges. Kneeling down, he grabbed Dean's arms gently and pulled him to a sitting position. Dean closed his eyes as his face lost what little colour it had. "God... Dude." He groaned through gritted teeth as his ribs stabbed with pain and stomach rolled with nausea. "I think she did some damage, Sammy."

"Yeah, Bro. I think she did." Sam replied, gently. Quickly, he took of his over shirt and bundled it up into a ball, then gently held it to the huge bloody gash in the back of Dean's skull. It was going to take some stitching to close that bad boy up and Sam make a face at the sight of all the blood.

"You're gonna have a lovely new scar, Dean." Sam told his brother, trying to keep him sitting upright, but he kept slumping bonelessly forwards.

"Chicks dig scars, Sammy." Dean replied breathlessly, struggling to fight the darkness that had come for him again and knowing that he was going to lose. The metallic taste of blood was back in his mouth and he grimaced.

Doctor Miller glanced towards the two brothers, frowning. Dean had lost a _lot_ of blood. He was already pretty weak to start with and from the way he was breathing she guessed that maybe he had the beginnings of a hemothorax or some other nasty internal injury. He didn't sound good and he was clearly going into shock. "Try to keep him conscious, Sam. Don't let him pass out."

But it was too late. Dean's eyes were already closed.

"No! Dean, stay awake, man. Don't go to sleep." Sam cried, and he shook him gently. Dean's eyes stayed closed, his face bone white again and Sam was horrified to see the awful blueness returning to his brother's lips. "Dean, open your eyes! Open them, man!"

"He's going to die, you know." The Demon chuckled. "The brave hunter, Dean Winchester. He's not going to go out heroically in a blaze of glory like he always dreamed of. He's just going to slowly bleed his life away all over the floor of an abandoned morgue until there's nothing left. Then what are you going to do, Sammy? Who's going to save you when he's gone?"

"Shut up!" Sam yelled, shaking his brother more roughly now, trying to rouse him. But Dean's eyes stayed closed.

"What are you going to do Sam? Who going to protect you?"

"Shut _Up_!" Sam yelled again and looked desperately up Dr Miller. She still had the gun pointed at the thing but didn't look anywhere near as ready to shoot as she had when she'd first burst in. As she'd said, she wasn't hunter.

The Demon also saw the faltering expression on the young doctor's face and began to slowly move towards her. The gun began to shake in her hands as if suddenly too heavy for her to hold and she glanced from the thing's face and back to Sam, her face uncertain and suddenly scared.

"Put the gun down!" The thing told her, stepping forwards. Its voice soft, melodious. Kindly. The same voice that had lured Sam into the false sense of security he'd been feeling for the past three days.

"Doctor Miller, don't!" Sam yelled, gently lowering his brother's limp body to the floor and climbing to his feet. "Don't give up that gun!"

Miller took a deep, shaking breath. Her hands beginning to tremble as what was happening really began to sink in. The thing in front of her wasn't human. It looked like a kindly faced nurse but it was so far from that. It was a real live _Demon._

"I never really believed him, you know. Never truly believed…" She began to mutter. Thinking back to all the times her Dad had tried to teach her, tried to get her to learn the family business. I saw some strange things when I was a kid, things I convinced myself that I'd dreamed up, but _Demons?"_

She wasn't really talking to Sam anymore, she was talking to herself, trying to convince herself that this was really happening.

Suddenly the thing began to change again, it's features melting and running together like water in a shallow river bed once more and a moment later a tall, dirty-blond haired man in his late thirties stood where the nurse had just been. He wore a three-quarter length leather coat, his face shadowed with a week's worth of stubble and his expression grim, like he hadn't had anything to smile about for a long, long time. And although his features were nothing like John Winchester's had been, he reminded Sam so strongly of his Father that it almost hurt to look at him. He looked like a hunter.

"Lucy… My beautiful Lucy." The man shaped Demon said, his voice warm and deep with the faint twang of Californian accent.

Miller's face crumpled as tears welled up in her pretty blue eyes. The man standing in front of her was her Father, or it looked like her Father the last time she had seen him, more than 10 years previously. Right down to scar that dissected his right eyebrow and the silver cross that hung on a leather thong around his neck.

"Daddy?" She whimpered, closing her eyes - then without warning she pulled the trigger and shot the thing that looked like her Father smack between the eyes. The shot echoed loudly off the metal in the empty room and the Demon let out a bloodcurdling howl before it began to dissolve into spinning black smoke. A moment later it had melting away to nothing. And when it was gone completely, Miller dropped the still smoking gun to the floor and sank slowly to her knees.

There was nothing but silence in the morgue for almost a minute before anyone spoke. The doctor sat motionless, breathing heavily with her eyes closed and Sam was still trying to get his head round what had just happened when she looked up at him and gave the younger Winchester an odd little smile.

"Don't think that I'm a bad person, Sam. But I've wanted to do that since I was 10 years old."

Sam shrugged and nodded sympathetically.

"Been there, bought the T-Shirt!" He replied and smiled the same odd little smile back at her.

**-o-**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

**-o-**

"Sam. You lied to me."

Sam stopped flicking around on the TV and looked over at his brother who was propped up against the pillows in the hospital bed. "When did I lie?"

Dean sighed and held out his hand for the remote, which Sam reluctantly gave him. They had already had that discussion more than once today. _"My hospital room, Sammy. My TV. Patient chooses the TV show, visitor shuts his cakehole." _

"I distinctly remember telling you to never let anyone stick a tube in me again. And you promised you wouldn't."

When Dean had first woken up after being on the ventilator, he had begged Sam not to let anyone stick a tube in him ever again, and Sam had promised him that he wouldn't. He had promised and he had lied. Ok, so the tube wasn't down his throat. This time it was sticking out of his ribs. Once they had managed to get back up to the ER from the old morgue, Dr Miller had cut a hole in his side and stabbed a big plastic tube into his lung, letting out what Sam had breathlessly estimated to be about a gallon of blood before throwing up in the sink by the door of the trauma room. And Jesus _Christ_ it had hurt! Miller had warned Dean that it would but he'd had no idea she'd meant it would hurt_ that_ much.

That was five days ago, and now Dean was feeling better, he was ready to leave. He'd had enough of hospitals to last him a lifetime and wanted out.

"Dean… Come on." Sam replied, knowing Dean was just bored, and when he was bored he liked to pick fights. Sam wasn't going to take the bait this time. They had been through too much over the past ten days and the last thing he wanted to do was fight with his brother over nothing.

"Well all I'm saying is if you make a promise to someone, you shouldn't break it…"

"Dean, leave it. I know you're bored but don't start."

Dean carried on regardless. "All I'm saying is that I asked you to do something for me and you didn't. You know if you'd asked me to do something for you…"

"Would you have preferred to drown in your own blood?" Sam replied, knowing that it was harsh but hoping that it would shut Dean up. And it did. The eldest Winchester slumped back into his pillows and scowled.

"You had a Hemothorax; you were bleeding into your lung. You would have died if Dr Miller hadn't done that chest tube." Sam replied and he sat back down in the chair beside Dean's bed and began eating another pot of pudding in silence, the third he'd eaten that day, while Dean continued to flick from channel to channel before switching the TV off and throwing the remote to the end of his bed. Clutching his hands to the side of his face in a gesture of pure frustration, he shook his head and sighed heavily.

The pain meds they had him on were pretty entertaining on their own but Dean had had enough of hospitals to last a lifetime and was itching to get out, even if he was going to be holed up in a crummy motel for a while. He didn't care. He was so beyond bored with daytime TV and looking at the same view out of the window. "God, Sam. I want out of here!"

Sam licked the spoon and put the empty pudding cup down. "I know, Dude. I know." He patted Dean gently on the leg. "I want out of here too. Another night of sitting in that damn chair and my legs may never be the same again. I'm sure I'm getting a deep vein thrombosis."

Dean smiled and nodded towards the pots of chocolate flavoured, gloopy, custard type substance that Sam seemed to be developing a mild addiction to. "Pass me a pudding, will you. I got nothing else to do, I might as well eat."

**-o-**

"Okay, Dean. This is going to hurt!" Dr Miller told the young hunter, absently brushing away a strand of blond hair from her face.

She had already ripped away at least two layers of Dean's skin whilst removing all the sticky surgical tape from his chest and had hold of the tube in her hands. A nurse stood beside her, ready with dressing in hand and Sam stood nervously at the end of the bed, chewing his fingernails and glancing at the nurse out of the corner of his eye. Trying to determine if she looked shifty or not. He was never going to look at a nurse he same way again.

"Wait - _wait_." Dean gasped, pulling his body away from the doctor. He was gripping the side of the bed with his left hand so hard his knuckles were white and his right hand was raised above his head and clutching the pillow, exposing his ribs and the tube that stuck out of his side. "When you said hurt, did you mean like putting it in hurt?

Miller nodded sympathetically. "Yep, afraid so." She patted him gently on the arm in a gesture of reassurance.

"What the hell? _Really?"_ Dean sighed, his brows pulled together in a worried frown. He clenched his jaw and his eyes flicked nervously from Sam's to the Doctor's.

"Yep, really." Miller replied. She placed her hands on the tube again. "You'll be ok. Big strong guy like you. And it'll only take a second. Now, I want you to take a big deep breath and hold it until we get that gauze on. Are you ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be, I guess." Dean replied and took a deep breath and held it as Miller gripped the tube. Motioning to the nurse she began to count down from three. Dean grit his teeth and closed his eyes and on the count of one she ripped the tube free from Dean's chest wall and the nurse standing by slapped a piece of gauze over the hole that it left behind.

Dean cried out in pain through gritted teeth and clamped his hand protectively down to his injured side. "_JESUSCHRISTONASTICK!"_ He hissed, glaring at the doctor with big wounded eyes.

"Oh shush… I know you've had worse." She scolded, smiling. And with her gloved fingers she lightly traced the two long thin scars across his chest and sternum. The scars that he'd been left with after the Yellow-Eyed Demon had tried to cut him open from the inside out whilst wearing his Dad's face.

Miller's smile disappeared and she frowned, as if seeing them properly for the first time, noticing how bad the injury that caused them must have been. She had first thought them just to be the marks left by superficial cuts, old hunting injuries, bar fight scars, but now she was really looking, she saw that they were the scars left by deep, almost surgical incisions.

Dean flinched under her scrutiny and brushed her hand away, covering himself with his arm. Some scars he was proud of, some he even liked. There was a particular little scar on his cheek, just under his left eye that the ladies seemed to dig in a big way, but those two big scars on his torso just brought back terrible memories. Pain, betrayal - Fear like he had never felt before.

"You okay, Dean?" Sam asked him gently, seeing the look on his brother's face. He looked like a dog that had been kicked from one end of the street to the other.

Dean struggled through the pain and bad memories to get his game face back on, then smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'm good. Like the Doc said, I've had worse."

"How did you get these?" Miller asked him gently, still frowning. Concern creeping into her voice. Despite all his griping and moaning and bravado, she had developed a bit of a soft spot for Dean Winchester and Sam was hard not to fall for with his big, sad, puppy dog eyes. She could see her own screwed-up childhood reflected in their faces as clear as if looking in a mirror and her heart ached for them. She was the daughter of a hunter and knew what they had suffered, knew what they had sacrificed. Felt their losses because she'd suffered the same ones. Her mother wasn't dead, but she had left all the same, driven away by the life that her own father, and his father had dragged them into. A life of vengeance and hardship. And like her mother, she had wanted none of it.

Dean motioned towards the nurse who was busy taping a dressing over the gauze on his side and the doctor nodded.

"Hey, Maura. Could you go and find Dr Andrews and tell him that I need to see him when he's free, please?"

The nurse finished taping the last bit of the dressing and looked up and nodded. "Sure thing, Dr Miller." And pulling off her gloves she left the room leaving Miller alone with the brothers.

"Are you done taping me up again, Doc?" Dean asked her. "Can I put my shirt back on?"

Miller nodded and took his T-Shirt from Sam. Helping him sit up, she pulled the shirt over his head and with her help Dean managed to get his arms into the right holes without causing himself too much discomfort. He then slumped back into the pillows and closed his eyes, weariness washing over him.

Sam leant over and ruffled Dean's flattened hair affectionately, only to have his hand batted irritably away as usual, then he looked up at the young doctor. "It was our Dad. He did that to Dean… Only it wasn't really him. He was possessed by a Demon. The Demon that killed our Mother when I was a baby. I don't know how he did it, he didn't touch him, there was no knife but he cut him open all the same. There was so much blood. I really thought Dean was going to die."

"Sammy…" Dean murmured, frowning. It was hard to listen to his brother tell someone what had gone down that night. He'd tried to forget it so many times but it never went away. Sometimes the memory of his Dad's face, eyes golden and glittering with malice in the gloom of that shack would creep up and jump out on him like an unwelcome trick-or-treater. He wanted desperately for that not to be the last memory of his Father, but it was.

Every time he tried to picture his Dad's face he saw nothing but malevolence, cruelty, scorn - nothing but evil. The mocking in John Winchester's voice had hurt him almost as much as the searing agony that he'd felt as he was slowly, invisibly sliced open. Blood filling his mouth, his throat, until he thought he might drown in it. And he'd begged - begged his Dad not to let the thing that wore his face kill him.

Sam knew the scars in Dean's mind, on his heart, were far deeper than those on his chest and he wondered if they would ever heal. No son should ever have to beg his Father for his life.

"So where's your Dad now?" Miller asked gently, knowing the answer before either Sam or Dean replied. She could see the answer in their eyes.

"He, um - he died. In hospital. We were in a car crash. Dean nearly died… _Was_ dying… " Sam told her quietly, looking out the window, avoiding her eyes. Afraid that if he began to tell her what had really happened, what they'd been through, he may never stop. He knew that the things he would say would hurt his brother so badly, and he couldn't stand to hurt Dean again.

Miller was silent for a moment, then she began to speak. "I haven't seen my Dad since I was eighteen. The last time was at my grandfather's funeral. He was killed by - by God only knows what. My Dad was furious, he got drunk. Screamed at everyone and disowned me in front of everyone there. Not that there were many mourners, you know? Life of secrecy and all that," she told them, sitting on the edge of Dean's bed. "And for years I hated him. I mean I _hated_ him for what he did to my Mother… For what he tried to do to me."

"So what changed?" Dean asked her quietly.

Miller sighed and smiled, taking his hand in hers and giving it a quick squeeze. "I realised that I was as bad as he was. He wanted me to be something that I wasn't, but I was just as unreasonable. I wanted him to be something that he wasn't too. My Dad was born to be a hunter, raised for that life by his Dad. Nothing I said could ever change that fact, the same as nothing he said could ever change my ideas about the life that I wanted. I couldn't understand it at the time but as the years have gone by I just realised that it was nobody's fault that we were who we were, nothing can change that, and I guess I just decided to forgive him."

Sam shook his head, and then walked over to the window, leaving Miller on the bed alone with Dean. She took his hand and held it in hers and smiled. He looked back at her, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. Bottomless pools of regret, endless oceans of hurt.

"Dean, I'm sure he never set out to hurt you, or your brother. And if either of you ever want to have any peace, you're just going to have to learn to accept him for who he was."

The oldest Winchester nodded silently, a single tear escaping down his cheek. He took a deep, shaking breath and pulled her hand into his body, clutching it tightly like she was the only thing keeping him tethered, the only thing keeping him from shattering.

"And Dean." Miller continued, leaning forwards and brushing the tear from his face. "You need to learn to forgive yourself."

**-o-**


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**-o-**

"Dad? -"

Dean was standing on one side of the riverbank, the same river that he had almost died in two weeks ago. He was desperately trying to see the figure standing on the other side but the mid-day sun was really bright in the sky and it hurt his eyes to look.

Shielding his face with his hand, Dean squinted. The sun was so bright he could barely make out the figure standing, hands in pockets, on the other side of the riverbank. He couldn't really see his face too well, but Dean knew it was him. He knew it was his Father.

"Dad… Please. Come back." He begged, his voice breaking. Although he couldn't really see him, Dean heard John Winchester sigh. The other bank of the river was far away but he could hear his Dad's voice as clearly as if he were standing next to him over the bubbling of the fast moving water.

"I can't, Kiddo. I'm sorry."

Dean narrowed his eyes in the sunlight and turned his face away. He desperately wanted to see his Dad's face. Needed to see him. He wanted to dive right on into the water and swim over, but the current was so strong, he knew he wouldn't make it. Dean began to pace back and forth but there was no way he could safely get over, there were no places to cross.

"Don't try it, Dean. You need to stay where you are. You can't come with me. You don't belong here, Son." John told him, holding his hand out in a warning.

Dean closed his eyes and clapped his hands over them. The bright white sunlight was warm on his face, on his hands. He sat down, suddenly weary, and rested his head on his knees, hiding his face from the light. He looked like a small lost child, which is exactly how he felt.

"Dad, please…"

John's voice carried clearly over the river again, it sounded like he was right next to him, speaking his ear. Dean tried to open his eyes, but couldn't. The light was blinding, even through his closed eyes, through his hands. So bright it almost hurt.

"Listen to me, Son." His father's voice said. "You can't follow me; it's not your time - Dean, you have to give up trying."

"But it should have been me… It _was_ my time." Dean yelled into his knees in frustration.

He knew he should have died in that hospital bed all those month ago. The injuries that he'd sustained in the crash, let alone the vicious attack by the Demon were almost impossible to recover from. The invisible butchering, the Demon wearing his Dad's face somehow slicing through his tortured flesh like a knife through butter and then his body smashed and broken like an unwanted doll by the impact of the truck. And even if by some miracle he hadn't died, he'd be in a coma still, a vegetable. No part of him alive apart from his slowly crumbling body.

His Dad's voice carried on, so warm, so familiar. It made his heart ache to hear it again. "You were hurt because of me. It was always because of me."

John sighed and hesitated for a moment before carrying on, his voice thick with emotion. "It was my fault that you and your brother were in that situation. You are my sons, _my boys_, not my soldiers. Sometimes I forgot that, Dean. Sometimes I was so blind to what I was doing to you both."

"No… Dad…" Dean began, but his John hushed him and Dean fell silent.

"In the hospital… It was my choice to do what I did, Dean. It was my choice and I'd do it again, without a second thought. Sam needs you more than he needs me. He always has."

Dean shook his head, hot tears escaping from under his hands and onto his cheeks. Such a painful longing eating him away. "But _I_ needed you, Dad. I _need_ you. I don't know what to do - I don't think I can carry on, it's too hard… The job… Everything. And I miss you. God, I miss you so much."

"Miss you too, Kiddo." John replied, his hard voice mellowed, all the years of anger and wrath replaced by something Dean couldn't quite place. Something he'd not heard in his father's voice since he was a child. Was it stillness? Peace? - He sounded sad, but the bitterness and hurt that Dean was so used to was gone.

"You need to be strong now." John continued. "You need to be strong for Sam, but most of all you need to be strong for yourself. I know you feel like all the weight is on your shoulders now, Son. I know you feel like giving up. And I know how that feels. It's hard on you and it's unfair and it's not going to get any easier, but you need to be strong."

Dean took a deep, shuddering breath and wiped the tears from his face. "I'm not strong, Dad. I don't think I can do this - I feel like everything is falling apart, I feel like I'm going under -"

His Dad's voice, kind but stern spoke again and Dean could almost feel his breath on his cheek. "I know you're strong. You're strong because you're a Winchester; you're strong because you're a part of me... And I'm a part of you, Dean, always will. I'll always be with you, Kiddo. I promise."

And with those words, Dean opened his eyes to see his brother's worried looking face staring down at him.

**-o-**

"It was just a dream." Dean told his brother as he followed him down the corridor of the hospital. Doctor Miller had just officially discharged him and it felt to Dean like he was just being released from a long jail sentence. "You know, all those pain meds they had me on. Being in this place has been like one big, messed up trip."

"But -" Sam began but quickly shut up when Dean gave him_ the_ look. The one he gave him when he began clucking around him like a mother hen.

"Stop your fretting, Sam." Dean continued. He almost wished that he hadn't told Sam about what he'd seen, what he had heard in the hallucination, the vision, whatever the hell it had been. "It was just a dream and I swear, you're driving me freakin' nuts."

Sam looked from his brother to Dr Miller who was walking with them out to the car park to see them off, but she just shrugged and looked at Sam as if to say, _Hey, don't ask me_, _I'm a physician, not a psychic_. She had seen some freaky things over the past week, but who was she to comment on whether something was a dream, a hallucination or a vision.

Either way, Dean seemed to have gained some inner peace because of it and for that she was glad. Glad for both of them. God only knew how much that boy needed it.

She was going to miss the Winchester boys. They had certainly livened up her life for the past few weeks. Like she had told them, it was a small town and she knew practically everyone who lived there and the Winchesters had blustered into town like a whirlwind and blown all the cobwebs out from her brain. It had certainly been a long time since she'd shot anything, especially a Demon of all things. It had woken up a small part of herself that she'd put into hibernation years ago, and if she was honest with herself, it felt kind of good. She wasn't going to start packing the pistol again or anything, but she wasn't going to go back to sleep again in a hurry. There was evil out there and she would never let herself forget that again. Her eyes were wide open.

"So where are you boys heading off to?" Miller asked as they walked through the car park and came to Dean's car.

"We're going to find a nice motel for a few days or so, kick back with some movies and some burgers then we're going to have a vacation." Sam replied, fishing the Impala's keys from his pocket.

Dean frowned and looked at his brother. "A vacation?"

"Sounds like a good idea." Miller agreed. "You still need to rest, Dean. Don't think that because I discharged you that you're good as new. You've almost died twice in the last two weeks and hunter or not, you're only human. I don't want to see Sam rushing you back in here in two days time because you've pushed yourself too hard. Your lung could collapse; you could develop pneumonia, an infection -"

"Yeah, I get the picture, Doc." Dean replied, nodding and smiled at her. Despite his natural defensiveness, Dean was incredibly grateful for all she had done for them, for _him_. She had saved their lives, more than once, and he would never forget it.

"Don't worry, Doctor Miller. I'm going to make sure he takes care of himself." Sam told her, grinning at his brother. "He's not going out of my sight."

Dean groaned and rolled his eyes at the thought of Sam fussing around and taking care of him. "Oh God, kill me now."

Miller smiled and patted Sam on the shoulder, nodding to his wrist. "Please, it's Lucy. And you need to look after yourself too, Sam. No more swimming with that cast on, okay?"

Sam nodded, and looked away, blushing slightly and Dean grinned. His little brother _so_ had a crush on her.

"So, I guess this is goodbye, then." Miller said, smiling sadly. And she held out a hand to shake Dean's, which he took politely, then gave up the politeness and pulled her into a hug, which she returned whole heartedly. "Thank you." He whispered quietly in her ear, as he let her go. "_For everything_."

Miller nodded in reply, giving his hand a squeeze and then turned to hug Sam, whose blush became even deeper.

"If you ever find yourselves in these parts again don't forget to stop by and say hi." Miller said, stepping back as they climbed into the Impala.

"We will, Doc." Dean replied and gave her little wave as Sam started the engine.

Miller gave him a little two fingered wave back. "Nice car, by the way." She yelled over the rumble of the engine as Sam reversed Dean's baby out of the parking spot.

"My Dad gave me a '71 Malibu."

Sam and Dean looked at each other, and then back at the doctor as they drove slowly out of the car park of the hospital.

"Do you think we have a long lost sister that no-one told us about?" Dean said shaking his head in mild amazement.

"Damn, I hope not!" Sam replied, still blushing and feeling Dean's eyes boring into him. And he pulled the car onto the road.

"Pervert!" Dean replied, grinning. And fishing one of his beloved cassette tapes out of the glove and sticking it in the deck, he settled back into the seat and closed his eyes as the gentle lilt of Metallica filled the car.

Cracking open the window, Dean let the warm midday air ruffle through his hair. Despite everything they had gone through the past two weeks, Dean felt peaceful. Part of it was getting out of the hospital, but that wasn't all. Part of it was what Miller had said to him and part of it was the dream – vision… Whatever the hell it had been? He hadn't let on to Sam exactly what he had seen, what he had heard, but he was sure that their Dad had come to him when he had really needed him and somehow it made him feel a little less alone. Although he had Sam, would always have Sam, his little brother was his responsibility and since their Dad had gone, Dean had really had no one in his corner. But now maybe, just maybe, he still did.

"So this vacation, Sam? Where are we headed?" Dean asked his brother.

"It's a surprise." Sam replied, smiling. Glad to see Dean look happy for once. He missed that look on his brother's face.

"Aw, Sammy. You know I don't like surprises."

**-o-**

The End.

* * *

**_A/N: Well, that's it guys. Hope you enjoyed this story the second time around. Thanks for reading! xxx_**


End file.
